Black engineers have made large contributions to sound and music know-how, overcoming systemic discrimination. And but, they’re too typically unsung, even right this moment. One anybody in sound ought to know is James West, who, as a part of a prolific profession, revolutionized recording with the electret microphone in analysis with Gerhard Sessler at Bell Labs.
James West was born in 1931 in deeply racist rural Virginia; his grandmother had been a slave. His curiosity was insatiable and – typically harmful. As Ars Technica recounts, he took aside his grandfather’s watch however didn’t put it again collectively once more, and managed to offer himself an electrical shock whereas connecting a radio. He needed to overcome his personal dad and mom’ resistance to him pursuing a profession in science. Seeing the setbacks of Black chemists, they refused to pay his faculty tuition. However West struck out on his personal, attended Temple College, and caught an advert for an internship at Bell Labs.
The remainder is historical past: the groundwork for the electret condenser, the design that might turn out to be essentially the most ubiquitous on this planet, was laid in that internship, and it began with an accident. The primary challenge with making a microphone compact is find out how to take care of energy. And the breakthrough got here from an experiment West was performing throughout that internship.
I don’t wish to totally contribute to the “lone innovator” mannequin of understanding media historical past. Even together with his large portfolio of patents, it’s the best way West labored collaboratively that’s most spectacular – typically contain extraordinary luck. (That is additionally the important thing to why combating for inclusion finally advantages everybody: it successfully makes all of us smarter. Or to place it one other approach, systemic discrimination makes us all dumber.)
And the story of the breakthrough that led to the event of a working electret mic is actually unimaginable. Right here it’s recounted in a analysis article on its historical past. (That article is terrific and price digesting in full). All of it started as Jim tried to make headphone transducers utilizing Mylar membranes (what was referred to as a Promote transducer), and bumped into a problem – transducer sensitivity would fall off in just some months:
This “drawback” grew to become a possibility, as is so widespread in scientific breakthroughs. By 1959 Gerhard Sessler had joined Bell Labs and Jim had returned from the college to research the sensitivity drawback with the headphone transducer on which he had labored as an intern. In one other of
these unusual coincidences that appears to play vital roles in scientific historical past, Sessler had additionally labored with the Promote transducer. Gerhard used the reciprocal Promote transducer in his Ph.D. work on sound propagation and absorption of gasses at excessive and low pressures and temperatures. When Jim started experimenting with the issue transducer, he by chance (however fortuitously) left the DC bias to the Promote receiver disconnected. To his shock, the receiver began enjoying loudly once more with its unique sensitivity—it had been restored by eradicating the bias voltage! Kuhl, Schodder, and Schroeder had noticed this conduct as properly however didn’t pursue this phenomenon of their analysis. By this time Sessler and West have been on the path and realized the sensitivity drawback was on account of the truth that the Mylar® polymer had turn out to be slowly charge-compensated. Cost compensation was inflicting the sluggish lack of sensitivity within the Promote transducer. With this understanding of the issue they went to the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics12 that was an encyclopedia of supplies on the time, and located that Teflon® had the best quantity resistivity of any materials they may discover (better than 1018 ohm-cm). With this discovery, they managed to acquire some sheets of Teflon®
from Dupont, the creator of Teflon®. They metalized the Teflon® with a skinny layer of aluminum and created the trendy electret microphone by tensioning a charged Teflon® membrane over a metalized backplate.
Elko, Gary W. and Okay.P. Harney. “A Historical past of Client Microphones: The Electret Condenser Microphone Meets Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Methods.” Acoustics Right now 5 (2009): 4. [PDF]
The electret idea dates again to 1892, but it surely was the primary time somebody created a working mic.
Right here’s a fantastic clarification – and as this video producer notes, a part of the story here’s a Black American collaboration with a German immigrant to the USA. Take be aware on each side – particularly as each Germany and the USA push anti-immigrant, anti-Black insurance policies.
Over 90% of the microphones in manufacturing yearly use this method. West has accomplished a lot extra – measuring the acoustics of NYC’s Philharmonic Corridor. He’s additionally utilized his ability with sound to a variety of analysis, from coping with noise ranges in hospitals to creating a tool to detect pneumonia. He has 250 patents to his title.
There are some nice interviews with West, too. Electret condensers get essentially the most consideration, however his work on sound is profound – as is the connection between audio know-how and well being care.
(That second video has 4 elements – see half II (which hits the electret condenser), III, and IV)
West has gladly gotten extra recognition lately, significantly in science circles, however I discover he’s nonetheless regularly not noted of the historical past of sound. (And usually, we skip loads of the historical past of the applied sciences we use.) That’s a loss, and it’s time to work to right it.
He closes that fourth interview with an impassioned plea for investing in information, science, and know-how, and its capacity to protect the world – plus the dearth of inclusion of ladies and minorities.
“We’re in a really delicate place worldwide, and irrespective of the way you take a look at it – from international warming to the outright stupidity of individuals – are threats to the survival of the planet. Options to those issues are very undoubtedly embedded in information, in what we are able to study, in what we are able to do as human beings to protect this planet.”
That takes a flip, although, in that he says what makes this value doing is that science is enjoyable. And if that doesn’t describe an overlap with music know-how, nothing does.
Extra:
These Three Missed Black Inventors Formed Our Lives (additionally that includes sugar manufacturing and the trendy ironing board) [Scientific American]
At 87, this Baltimore inventor has 250 patents to his title — and he’s nonetheless at it [The Washington Post]
Hear up: James West ceaselessly modified the best way we hear the world [Ars Technica]
Photograph at high: Sonavi Labs by way of Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
