April 30, 1877. The poet Charles Cros invents the phonograph

2023-04-30 01:19:00

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PODCAST. Scholar, fanciful and poet, Charles Cros is also a friend of Verlaine and Rimbaud. His paleophone is a genius idea, but without a future.

Frédéric Lewino et Gwendoline Dos Santos

Published on 04/30/2012 at 00:00
– Modified 04/30/2023 at 01:19

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On April 30, 1877, the Academy of Sciences recorded a sealed envelope filed the previous October 18 by a certain Charles Hortensius Émile Cros, 34 years old. The document describes a method for recording and reproducing phenomena perceived by hearing. This device is named paleophone by its inventor. Which means: voice of the past. Without going into details, it is made up of a vibrating membrane with a point in its center which rests on a “disk animated by a double movement of rotation and rectilinear progression”. Concretely, the sound of the voice makes the membrane vibrate which itself animates the needle which traces a furrow on the disc. And, conversely, when the needle travels the groove, it transmits a vibration to the membrane which reproduces the sound of departure.

The p…