Helmholtz's "On the Sensations of Tone"

Hermann von Helmholtz's "On the Sensations of Tone" explores the nature of sound and how we perceive it. He describes how sounds are made from vibrations, which create waves in the air that our ears detect. Helmholtz explains how we differentiate tones in terms of pitch, loudness, and timbre. He also introduces the idea of musical consonance and dissonance, examining the harmony of sounds based on their frequency ratios. This work combined physiology with musical theory, laying foundations for acoustics and influencing how we understand music and auditory perception today.