Harvey Fletcher's role in the creation of communication acoustics

Abstract

As the reader might appreciate after reading Fletcher's 1953 views, in 1918 Fletcher had taken on the toughest problem of all: to quantify and model how we hear and understand speech. This understanding allowed AT&T Bell Labs engineers to develop the necessary specifications of what was to become the largest telephone network in the world. The problems that Fletcher and his colleagues studied were so complicated, and took so many years, that it has been difficult to appreciate the magnitude of their accomplishments. It is therefore understandable why his work has had such a great impact on our lives. Almost single-handedly he created the fields of communication acoustics and speech and hearing as we know them today. Everyone who has ever used the telephone has reaped the benefit provided by this man and his genius. von Békésy, Davis, Stevens, and Zwicker are some of the names that come to mind when we think of hearing. Bell invented the telephone, and Edison made it into a practical device. Harvey Fletcher may not be as well known as these men today, but his scientific contributions to the fields of telephony, hearing, and human communication are absolutely unsurpassed. Given this present opportunity to reflect back on this great man, I would describe Harvey Fletcher as the singular intellectual force in the development of present-day communication acoustics and telephony.