Audible realities and phonic fantasies: The first major book on acoustics.
By Corinne Mona, Assistant Librarian at The Niels Bohr Library & Archives
Before there were walkie talkies, there was Athanasius Kircher. In 1673, Kircher published Phonurgia nova : sive Conjugium mechanico-physicum artis & naturae paranympha phonosophia concinnatum (1673), which is chock-full of inventive ways to transmit sound.