• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.44-50
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• 2009

While American acoustics had been lagged behind European one in the nineteenth century, Alfred Mayer greatly contributed to enhance American experimental acoustics. He inherited experimental skills in collaboration with Koenig in Paris, and got chances to obtain research ability from leading researchers such as Rayleigh during his visit to England. His accomplishments, which brought him fame in Europe, included the creation of the acoustic pyrometer which measured the high temperature by means of the thermal change of the sound velocity, the discovery of mosquito's hearing by selective resonance, the formalization of the duration of the residual sensation of sound, the invention of the topophone which searched for the direction of the sound source, the construction of the apparatus for visualizing the frequency of sound and so on. He not only added new research results to Europe's acoustics but applied acoustics to physical education to help produce the next generation of American acousticians.