HISTORY

    Galileo, an Italian astronomer and physicist, was the greatest contributor to our understanding of sound. He demonstrated that the frequency of sound waves determined the pitch. This was done by scraping a chisel across a brass plate producing a screech. Galileo then related the spacing of the grooves induced by the chisel to the pitch of the screech.

Others Contributors:

Leonardo DaVinci - (1500) discovered that sound travels in waves.

Marin Mersenne - (1640) first measured the speed of sound in air.
 
Robert Boyle - (1660) discovered that sound waves must travel in a medium.
 
Sir Isaac Newton - (late 1660's) formulated a relationship between the speed of sound in a medium and the density and compressibility in a medium.
 
Daniel Bernoulli - (mid 1700's) explained that a string could vibrate at more than one frequency.