Tuning forks are a novel item in the music sphere, and are one of the most popular symbols used to represent music and related subjects. But beyond seeing the hundreds of crappy clip art images of these fun objects, how many of you have actually used one? The tuning fork has an interesting story, so I would like to share it with you now.
In 1711, a trumpeter/instrument maker by the name of John Snore (he was homies with Handel). At the time, musicians would use wooden pipes to tune up. However, this method was unreliable because the wood was easy affected by changes in humidity and temperature. The pitch fork on the other hand, is able to maintain the same pitch and also produces a pure tone, or sine wave (fun fact you too can produce a sine wave, just whistle).
Anyway so the reason I decided to write about this is because of the following fact: tuning forks were used for medical purposes in the late 19th century. The way tuning forks work, is that when you hit it on something, it vibrates to make a pitch, which can be amplified when you place it on a solid surface like wood or metal (or bone). Doctors would use these vibrations to locate broken bones! What they would do was strike the fork to make it vibrate, move it along the area of the body that was supposed to be broken, then when the patient started feeling pain from the vibration they'd be all "Found the spot guys!"
Just thought I'd share that, be thankful for x-rays.
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