Analytical Interpretation of the Early Literature on the Theory of Vibrations

A discussion is given of early literature pertaining to the theory of vibration from the time of Pythagoras up through 1750. The paper attempts to give an analytical interpretation to early anecdotal works concerning Pythagoras and to publications of Galileo, Huygens, Hooke, Taylor, John Bernoulli, Leibniz and Euler. To bridge the “culture gap,” mathematical developments by the latter cited authors are, whenever appropriate, rephrased in modern notation, using, for the most part, only those techniques that should have been well known to the authors at the time. The emphasis is on what might be loosely called the physics (or the mathematical physics) of vibration.