Michael’s Reviews > The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World > Status Update

"Another admired philosopher of the day, Athanasius Kircher, described an invention called a cat piano. A row of cats sat in side-by-side cages. arranged according to the pitch of their meows. When the pianist pressed a key, a spike stabbed into the tail of the appropriate cat. 'The result was a melody of meows that became more vigorous as the cats became more desperate.'"