In the annals of invention, there may be no more curious mix of farsightedness and myopia than the story of the phonautograph. On the one hand, Scott had managed to make a critical conceptual leap—that sound waves could be pulled out of the air and etched onto a recording medium—more than a decade before other inventors and scientists got around to it. (When you’re two decades ahead of Edison, you can be pretty sure you’re doing well for yourself.) But Scott’s invention was hamstrung by one crucial—even comical—limitation. He had invented the first sound recording device in history. But he
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