Abstract
THE long— life of Mr. Sedley Taylor, who died recently at the age of eighty-five years, nearly all of which were spent in public activities at Cambridge, was in many ways notable. Theology, mathematics, physical science, practical economics, and preeminently music, occupied his attention. His withdrawal from active theological pursuits (in 1863 he was ordained to a curacy near Birmingham) was not merely a personal event; it was also linked up with the movement for greater academic freedom at Cambridge. About the same time Henry Sidg-wick (1869) and Leslie Stephen (1862) gave up their fellowships. So early as 1862 appeared the first edition of Helmholtz's classical treatise on the sensations of tone. A translation into English, published by A. J. Ellis in 1875, increased its reaction in this country both on the physical theory of sound and on the aesthetic principles of music, which it for the first time brought into detailed, reasoned connection. Its influence was much forwarded by Sedley Taylor's book, “Sound and Music,” which appeared in 1873, and was the earliest general exposition in short compass by a writer competent on both sides of the subject. An event which his characteristic energy rendered prominent was his invention of an apparatus which he named the phoneidoscope. It consisted essentially of a resonant cavity, with an aperture over which a soap-film was stretched: when the operator sang to it a note nearly in unison with the cavity, the aerial vibrations revealed themselves visibly in whirling movement of the coloured striations of the liquid film.
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ROOTHAM, C. Mr. Sedley Taylor. Nature 105, 143 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/105143a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/105143a0