Scott De Martinville, EdouardlÉOn
(1817–1879)
Scott De Martinville, EdouardlÉOn (25 Apr 1817–29 Apr 1879) Scott de Martinville was a French amateur phonetician who developed a recorder for sound waves. Born in Paris, he became interested in making a permanent record of sounds in air. He constructed a phonautograph in collaboration with the leading scientific instrument maker in Paris at the time, Rudolph Koenig. The instrument was a success, and Koenig contracted Scott and published a collection of traces in 1864. Although the membrane was…