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2/23/10
Meeting Highlights
by Bob
Zurek
Riverbank Acoustical Laboratories: Acoustics, Cotton and Cryptology.
Presented
By: David Moyer Tour By: Dean Victor and Marc Sciaky
On February
23, 2010 40 members of the AES Chicago Section traveled out to Geneva Illinois
to the Riverbank Acoustical Laboratories to tour the facilities and hear David
Moyer give the history of the Lab.
David
began the history of the Riverbank complex by telling the attendees about the
original owner of the Riverbank estate, Colonel George Fabyan. Colonel Fabian
came from a family that made its money in Cotton and built his estate on the
shores of the Fox river in 1907. Davis described how
being a rich philanthropist, Colonel Fabyan excelled at �collecting�
professionals in all sorts of fields. Mr. Moyer told how the history of the
Acoustic laboratories began with Shakespeare or more specifically Elizabeth Gallop�s
study of codes in original editions of Shakespeare�s works. Elizabeth with the help of William Friedman
discovered that the printings of Shakespeare�s works printed by Sir Francis
Bacon contained coded messages hidden through the use of differing font width
in the editions. The code which came to be known as Bacon�s Bilateral Code
consisted on 5 digit �digital words� where the zeros and ones making up the
alphabet were two distinct font widths. The reason that this work led to the
founding of the Acoustic laboratory lay in one of the coded messages found in
the text. The message described an acoustic levitation machine that Colonel
Fabyan was interested in building. The machine was built up, but experienced
problems when tried out. Colonel Fabyan decided he needed an acoustician to
solve the problem and wound up going to his brother at Harvard University
who introduced him to Wallace Clement Sabine. While Professor Sabine was
never able to get the levitating machine to work he did become friends with
Colonel Fabyan who offered to build an architectural acoustic facility for
him in quiet Geneva, IL. �Sabine took Colonel Fabyan up on his offer
and Riverbank Acoustical Laboratories was completed in 1918, the year before
Sabine died. Sabine was however able to use the facilities during that time
to come up with the Sabine formula used today to determine acoustic absorption
coefficients.
Wallace�s
distant cousin Paul Sabine was hired to direct the lab after Wallace�s death
and worked to develop Riverbank into the internationally recognized
laboratory that it is today. Along the way Paul was instrumental in many
advancements in architectural treatment, acoustical testing apparatus, and hearing
aides.
The
lab currently contains six reverberation chambers and is still active in the characterization
of acoustical materials.
The presentation was followed by a tour of the Riverbank
Acoustic facilities given by Dean, Marc and David.
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