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CATEGORIES:Music,Performance
DESCRIPTION:Transforming Noise: A History of Its Science and Technology fro
 m Disturbing Sounds to Informational Errors\, 1900-1955\n\nIn this talk\, I
  examine the historical origin of the attempts to understand\, control\, an
 d use noise at modern times.  Today\, the concept of noise is employed to c
 haracterize random fluctuations in general.  Before the twentieth century\,
  however\, noise only meant disturbing sounds.  In the 1900s-50s\, noise un
 derwent a conceptual transformation from unwanted sounds that needed to be 
 domesticated into a synonym for errors and deviations on all kinds of signa
 ls and information.  I argue that this transformation proceeded in four sta
 ges.  The rise of sound reproduction technologies—phonograph\, telephone\, 
 and radio—in the 1900s-20s prompted engineers to tackle unwanted sounds as 
 physical effects of media through quantitative representations and measurem
 ents. Around the same time\, physicists developed a theory of Brownian moti
 ons for random fluctuations and applied it to electronic noise in thermioni
 c tubes of telecommunication systems.  These technological and scientific b
 ackgrounds led to three distinct theoretical treatments of noise in the 192
 0s-30s: statistical physicists’ studies of Brownian fluctuations’ temporal 
 evolution\, radio engineers’ spectral analysis of atmospheric disturbances\
 , and mathematicians’ measure-theoretic formulation.  Finally\, during and 
 after World War II\, researchers working on the military projects of radar\
 , gunfire control\, and secret communications converted the interwar theore
 tical studies of noise into tools for statistical detection\, estimation\, 
 prediction\, and information transmission.  In so doing\, they turned noise
  into an informational concept.  Since the grappling of noise involved mult
 iple disciplines\, its history sheds light on the interactions between phys
 ics\, mathematics\, mechanical technology\, electrical engineering\, and in
 formation and data sciences in the twentieth century.\n\n\nChen-Pang Yeang 
 is a professor at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science a
 nd Technology\, University of Toronto. His research areas include the histo
 ries of physics\, computing technologies\, electrical engineering\, languag
 e sciences\, and sonic sciences and technologies in North America\, Western
  Europe\, and East Asia from the 19th century to the present. He published 
 two books Transforming Noise (Oxford 2023) and Probing the Sky with Radio W
 aves (Chicago 2013)\, and articles on Chao Yuan Ren's cybernetics\, Chinese
  computer enthusiasts' BBS network CFido\, replication of Heinrich Hertz's 
 electric-wave experiment\, and more.
DTEND:20241101T180000Z
DTSTAMP:20260312T040256Z
DTSTART:20241101T163000Z
LOCATION:Lincoln Hall B20
SEQUENCE:0
SUMMARY:Joint Colloquium (STS\, Music & Sound Studies) with Chen-Pang Yeang
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_47905159753416
URL:https://events.cornell.edu/event/joint-colloquium-sts-music-sound-studi
 es-with-chen-pang-yeang
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