Harvey Fletcher

Harvey Fletcher (September 11, 1884 – July 23, 1981) was an American physicist.[1] Known as the
"father of stereophonic sound", he is credited with the invention of the 2-A audiometer[2] and an early
electronic hearing aid.[3][4] He was an investigator into the nature of speech and hearing, and made
contributions in acoustics, electrical engineering, speech, medicine, music, atomic physics, sound
pictures, and education. Following his death, he was credited with collaborating with his doctoral
advisor, Robert Millikan, on the Nobel-prize winning oil drop experiment which first determined the
charge of the electron.[5]

Early years

Fletcher was born in Provo, Utah. He graduated from Brigham Young High School in 1904. He
enrolled at Brigham Young University (BYU), graduating in 1907 with a bachelor's degree. He married
Lorena Chipman. They were the parents of seven children.[6] Harvey Fletcher was the father of
James C. Fletcher, former president of the University of Utah and NASA Administrator [7][8] and of
Harvey J. Fletcher, a BYU math professor.

Graduate work

In 1911, Fletcher was the first physics student to earn a PhD summa cum laude from the University
of Chicago.[6] His dissertation research was on methods to determine the charge of an electron.
This included the oil drop experiment commonly attributed to his advisor and collaborator, Robert
Andrews Millikan. Millikan took sole credit, in return for Fletcher claiming full authorship on a related
result for his dissertation. Fletcher's contributions were detail-oriented but still contributed to the
successful experiment, in which he incorporated, among other things, experience with projection
lanterns.[9] Millikan went on to win the 1923 Nobel Prize for Physics, in part for this work, and
Fletcher kept the agreement a secret until his death.[10]

After completing his doctorate, he returned to BYU, where he became the head of the physics
department. He served in this capacity from 1911 until 1916. Fletcher left BYU to work at Western
Electric, establishing himself as a researcher.[6] He organized the founding of the Acoustical Society
of America (ASA) in 1929.[11] He joined the Bell Telephone Laboratories' Engineering Staff Research
Department where he found great interest in the physics of sound (acoustical science).[6] He worked
there from 1933 to 1949, when he became a professor of electrical engineering at Columbia
University from 1949 to 1952. He returned to BYU in 1952 to be the director of research. He served
in that role as well as being the first dean of the
Harvey Fletcher
new college of physics and engineering sciences
until 1958.[12]

Notable contributions

Fletcher's contributions to speech perception are

among his best-known work. He showed that
speech features are usually spread over a wide
frequency range, and developed the articulation
index to approximately quantify the quality of a
speech channel.[13] He also developed the
concepts of equal-loudness contours (commonly
known as Fletcher–Munson curves), loudness
scaling and summation, and the critical band.[14]

At Bell Labs, he oversaw research in electrical

sound recording, including the first successful
stereophonic recordings, the first live stereo Born September 11, 1884
Provo, Utah, U.S.
sound transmission, and the production of the
first vinyl recording. All of this was done with the Died July 23, 1981
help of the conductor of the Philadelphia (aged 96)
Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, between 1931 and Provo, Utah, U.S.
[15][16]
1932. Some of his other accomplishments
Alma mater Brigham Young
include the production of the first functional
University
hearing aid, the 2-A audiometer, and the artificial University of Chicago
[6]
larynx. At Bell Labs, he worked with and was
Known for Invention of the
reportedly a tremendous influence on Harold
hearing aid
Burris-Meyer, who developed advances in
The father of
psychoacoustics.[17]
stereophonic sound
Oil drop experiment
Much of his research is considered to be
measuring the charge
authoritative, and his books, Speech and Hearing
of the electron
and Speech and Hearing in Communication, are
notable treatises on the subject. Awards Presidential Citation
Louis E. Levy Medal
(1924)

ASA Gold Medal

 (1957)
Honors Audio Engineering
Society Gold Medal
Fletcher was elected an honorary fellow of the Award (1958)

Acoustical Society of America in 1949, the IEEE Founders Medal

(1967)
second person to receive this honor after Thomas
Grammy Award (2016)
Edison, 20 years earlier. He was president of the
American Society for Hard of Hearing, an Scientific career
honorary member of the American Otological
Fields Physics
Society and an honorary member of the Audio
Engineering Society. In 1924 he was awarded the Institutions Western Electric
Louis E. Levy Medal by the Franklin Institute for Bell Laboratories

physical measurements of audition. He was Columbia University

president of the American Physical Society. He

Doctoral advisor Robert A. Millikan
was the first president of Acoustical Society of
America (1929–31).[18][19] In 1937 he was elected
vice-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a member of
the National Academy of Sciences. He was also a member of the National Hearing Division
Committee of Medical Sciences. He was given the Progress Medal Award by the American
Academy of Motion Pictures, in Hollywood. For eight years he acted as National Councilor for the
Ohio State University Research Foundation.

In 2010, Fletcher was honored by BYU as the founding dean of its College of Engineering [20] (now
the Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering).

On April 23, 2016, Fletcher was awarded a posthumous technical Grammy Award for his research
and inventions related to stereophonic sound.[6][21]

Personal life

Fletcher was a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[22]

He died on July 23, 1981, after a stroke.

References

1. Gardner, Mark B. (October 1981). "Obituary: Harvey Fletcher" ([Link]

4315) . Physics Today. 34 (10): 116. Bibcode:1981PhT....34j.116G ([Link]
 du/abs/1981PhT....34j.116G) . doi:10.1063/1.2914315 ([Link]
5) .

2. Fletcher, Tom. "In Memory of Harvey Fletcher" ([Link]

tcher/harvey_fletcher.html) .

3. William M. Hartmann (January 9, 1997). Signals, Sound, and Sensation ([Link]

m/books?id=3N72rIoTHiEC&pg=PA72) . Springer. pp. 72–. ISBN 978-1-56396-283-7.

4. Fletcher, Stephen H. (1992). "HARVEY FLETCHER 1884-1981" ([Link]

ations/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/[Link]) (PDF). NAS Online. National
Academy of Sciences. Retrieved November 20, 2015.

5. David Goodstein (January 2001). "In defense of Robert Andrews Millikan" ([Link]
[Link]/~dg/[Link]) (PDF). American Scientist. 89 (1): 54–60.
Bibcode:2001AmSci..89...54G ([Link] .
doi:10.1511/2001.1.54 ([Link] . S2CID 209833984 ([Link]
[Link]/CorpusID:209833984) .

6. Stanford, Jeremy (Fall 2016), "Harvey Fletcher and the Reinvention of Sound", Frontiers, Provo,
Utah, pp. 15–19

7. Fletcher, Tom. "In Memory of Harvey Fletcher" ([Link]

tcher/harvey_fletcher.html) . Retrieved May 30, 2017.

8. Fisher, Ian (December 24, 1991). "James Fletcher, 72, NASA Chief Who Urged Shuttle Program,
Dies" ([Link]
[Link]) . The New York Times. Retrieved February 2, 2017.

9. David Goodstein (January–February 2001). "In the Case of Robert Andrews Millikan" ([Link]
[Link]/~dg/[Link]) (PDF). American Scientist: 54–60.

10. Harvey Fletcher (June 1982). "My Work with Millikan on the Oil-drop Experiment" ([Link]
[Link]/web/20160128151252/[Link]
rk_Millikan.pdf) (PDF). Physics Today. 35 (6): 43–47. Bibcode:1982PhT....35f..43F ([Link]
[Link]/abs/1982PhT....35f..43F) . doi:10.1063/1.2915126 ([Link]
63%2F1.2915126) . Archived from the original ([Link]
_Fletcher_Work_Millikan.pdf) (PDF) on January 28, 2016.

11. "History of the ASA" ([Link] . Acoustical Society of

America. Retrieved July 31, 2023.

12. L. Tom Perry Special Collections, BYU Library. [Link]

Retrieved 2014.12.20
13. Jont B. Allen (2005). Articulation And Intelligibility ([Link]
o2fIC&q=harvey+fletcher+jont&pg=PA25) . Morgan & Claypool. ISBN 1-59829-008-8.

14. William Morris Hartmann (1997). Signals, Sound, and Sensation ([Link]
ks?id=3N72rIoTHiEC&q=harvey+fletcher+1981&pg=PA72) . Springer. ISBN 1-56396-283-7.

15. Huffman, Larry. "Stokowski, Harvey Fletcher, and the Bell Labs Experimental Recordings" (htt
p://[Link]/Harvey%20Fletcher%20Bell%20Labs%[Link]) .
[Link]. Retrieved February 17, 2014.

16. William Ander Smith. The Mystery of Leopold Stokowski. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,
1990, p. 175.

17. Prof. Gascia Ouzounian, presentation about Harold Burris-Meyer entitled "Psycho-Acoustics:
Sound Control, Emotional Control, and Sonic Warfare" ([Link]
b_epUIyXg) , presented by the Samuel C. Williams Library at Stevens Institute of Technology,
October 19, 2022

18. Acoustical Society of America. "Harvey Fletcher, BYU's first physics grad earns posthumous
Grammy Award" ([Link]
article/harvey-fletcher-byu%E2%80%99s-first-physics-grad-earns-posthumous-grammy-awar
d) . Acoustical Society of America. Archived from the original ([Link]
cle/harvey-fletcher-byu%E2%80%99s-first-physics-grad-earns-posthumous-grammy-award)
on November 13, 2016. Retrieved May 30, 2017.

19. Acoustical Society of America. "Past and Present Officer and Members of the Executive
Council" ([Link]
ship/records/officers_and_managers) . Acoustical Society of America. Archived from the
original ([Link] on May
23, 2017. Retrieved May 30, 2017.

20. Winters, Charlene (September 23, 2010). "Harvey Fletcher is Honored Founder for BYU
Homecoming 2010" ([Link] . Brigham Young
University. Retrieved February 17, 2014.

21. "Special Merit Awards: Class Of 2016" ([Link]

ease/ruth-brown-celia-cruz-earth-wind-fire-herbie-hancock-jefferson) . [Link].
Retrieved April 25, 2016.

22. In Memory of Harvey Fletcher ([Link]

[Link])
External links

"In Memory of Harvey Fletcher ([Link]

[Link]) " - a brief biography and collection of links

Oral history interview transcript with Harvey Fletcher on 15 May 1964, American Institute of
Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives ([Link]
al-histories/4535)

Department of Communication Disorders at BYU ([Link]

[Link] - Audiology department at BYU

Harvey Fletcher Scientist, Father of Stereophonic Sound, Author ([Link]

letcher/[Link])

Fletcher Interview, 1963 ([Link]

g/jba/BOOKS_Historical/FletcherVideo/)

National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir ([Link]

raphical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/[Link])

Materials related to Harvey Fletcher ([Link] at the L.

Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University