Ludimar Hermann (October 31, 1838 – June 5, 1914) was a German
physiologist
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical a ...
and
speech scientist
Speech science refers to the study of production, transmission and perception of speech. Speech science involves anatomy, in particular the anatomy of the oro-facial region and neuroanatomy, physiology, and acoustics.
Speech production
The pro ...
who used the
Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These invention ...
phonograph
A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
to test theories of vowel production, particularly those of
Robert Willis and
Charles Wheatstone
Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS FRSE DCL LLD (6 February 1802 – 19 October 1875), was an English scientist and inventor of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era, including the English concertina, the stereoscope (a device for di ...
. He coined the word ''
formant
In speech science and phonetics, a formant is the broad spectral maximum that results from an acoustic resonance of the human vocal tract. In acoustics, a formant is usually defined as a broad peak, or local maximum, in the spectrum. For harmoni ...
'', a term of importance in modern
acoustic phonetics
Acoustic phonetics is a subfield of phonetics, which deals with acoustic aspects of speech sounds. Acoustic phonetics investigates time domain features such as the mean squared amplitude of a waveform, its duration, its fundamental frequency, o ...
. The
Hermann grid is named after him; he was the first to report the
illusion
An illusion is a distortion of the senses, which can reveal how the mind normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Although illusions distort the human perception of reality, they are generally shared by most people.
Illusions may o ...
in scientific literature.
Physiology research
Hermann was born in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
. In addition to his work in phonetics, he was influential as a physiologist. He opposed the notion, propounded by
Emil du Bois-Reymond
Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond (7 November 181826 December 1896) was a German physician and physiologist, the co-discoverer of nerve action potential, and the developer of experimental electrophysiology.
Life
Du Bois-Reymond was born in Berlin a ...
, that muscles contained an ordered series of "electromotive molecules" in favor of a theory of chemical activity. Hermann showed that the entire surface of an uninjured muscle was electrically equipotential. His discoveries in this field were instrumental to the modern use of the
electrocardiograph as a diagnostic tool.
['']Proceedings of the Royal Society of London
''Proceedings of the Royal Society'' is the main research journal of the Royal Society. The journal began in 1831 and was split into two series in 1905:
* Series A: for papers in physical sciences and mathematics.
* Series B: for papers in life s ...
'', Series B. Vol. 91, No. 641 (Nov. 15, 1920), pp. xxxviii-xl. He also was the first to explain the
digestive process as being a decomposition of protein through
acid hydrolysis to obtain the raw materials needed by cells.
Hermann died in
Königsberg
Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named ...
. An obituarist credited his research success to "his exceptional skill in the design, construction, and use of apparatus as needed for the problems on which he was engaged. Most of these problems depended for their solution on the accurate measurement of physical quantities."
Hermann is probably best remembered as the editor of a textbook on physiology.
Phonetics research
In his analysis of voice and speech, he made use of
photographic registration and magnification of the surface features of a phonograph record's grooves to visually display the sounds of speech. Through his work, he determined that the passage of air through the mouth cavity, modified for each vowel, strongly affected the harmonics of tones from the
larynx
The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of larynx into pharynx known as the laryngeal inlet is about ...
.
Notes
External links
Photo, biography, and bibliographyin the
Virtual Laboratory The online project Virtual Laboratory. Essays and Resources on the Experimentalization of Life, 1830-1930, located at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, is dedicated to research in the history of the experimentalization of life. Th ...
of the
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (German: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte) is a scientific research institute founded in March 1994. It is dedicated to addressing fundamental questions of the history of knowledg ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hermann, Ludimar
1838 births
1914 deaths
German physiologists
Scientists from Berlin
People from the Province of Brandenburg
Phoneticians
Humboldt University of Berlin alumni
University of Königsberg faculty
People associated with the University of Zurich
Foreign Members of the Royal Society