The physics of violin, when music and science meet

In 1922a young man, C Subrahmanya Ayyar, gave his first solo performance playing the violinat the Presidency College, Madras.

- Projit Bihari Mukharji

The soiree was followed by a lecture by Ayyar’s younger brother on the physical properties of the sound made by the violin. The latter was none other than the eminent physicist, Sir CV Raman. The connection between physics and the violin went much further. Ayyar himself would quote from the works of eminent physicists like Hermannvon Helmholtz in his writings on the violin and Raman would go on to build a “mechanical violin player”.

Inthe roughly two decades between World Wars I and II, Indian physicists published nearly a dozen papers in the two foremost international physics journals of the day, The Physical Review and The Philosophical Magazine, on the violin or research closely related to it. There were many more papers in local scientific journalsas well. The history of the violin in the hands of Indian physicists is an excellent opportunity to reflect on the relationship between science and culture.

Music historian Amanda Weidman relates Ayyar and Raman’s interest in the violin to the larger history of the creation ofa “classical” form of Carnatic music. The first violins had arrived in India in the 1760s in Calcutta. But they were soon taken up by musicians in southern India. Baluswamy Dikshitar, the brother of composer Muthuswamy Dikshitar; the composer-king of Travancore (in today’s Kerala) Swati Tirunal; His court performer Vadivelu; and Varahappayar, the canny minister of Maharaja Serfoji of Thanjavur, are all known to have played the violin around the dawn ofthe I9th century.