One of the landmark inventions in human history was the ability to record sound.

This technology allowed music to go from something only appreciated by a small number of rich people

to something which could be enjoyed by millions.

And it also allowed people to speak to others across vast distances

and eventually led to a thing called podcasting.

Learn more about the history of recorded sound

and how we went from wax cylinders to MP3s on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Normally when I talk about the development of a tool or technology, some extremely early version of it predated the modern version by hundreds or even thousands of years.

That is not the case with the recording of sound.

There is nothing we can point to before the mid-19th century, which is even a proto version of

sound recording.

And I have to acknowledge an urban legend and news story which broke several years ago which

claimed that sound waves had been etched into wet pottery when it was being shaped.

And in one claim, the noise of Mount Vesuvius erupting had been captured in a clay pot

moments before it was buried in volcanic ash.

All of these stories have been debunked.

Not only is there no evidence, but given how clay pots are made, it would be almost impossible

for a needle to etch sound waves into them using ancient tools.

That being said, the problem of capturing sound waves is a relatively straightforward one.

Sound consists of vibrations that travel through the air. It is fundamentally a physical phenomenon.

If you can convert the vibrations in the air to a physical object, then you could in theory capture the sound.

The first person we have evidence of who was than you could in theory capture the sound.

The first person we have evidence of who was able to capture sound waves was the French

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