View source for Wallace Clement Sabine

{{Short description|American acoustic physicist (1868–1919)}}
{{About|the founder of acoustic science|the composer and organist|Wallace Arthur Sabin}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2021}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Wallace Clement Sabine
| image             = Sabine.png
| image_size        = 
| alt               = 
| caption           = Photograph of Sabine
| birth_date        = {{birth date|1868|06|13}}
| birth_place       = [[Richwood, Ohio|Richwood]], [[Ohio]], U.S.
| death_date        = {{death date and age|1919|01|19|1868|06|13}}
| death_place       = [[Boston]], [[Massachusetts]], U.S.
| residence         = 
| citizenship       = 
| nationality       = American
| fields            = [[Acoustics]]
| workplaces        = 
| alma_mater        = [[Ohio State University]] {{small|([[Bachelor of Arts|AB]])}} [[Harvard University]] {{small|([[Master of Arts|AM]])}}
| doctoral_advisor  = [[John Trowbridge (physicist)|John Trowbridge]]<!--(b. 1843; d. 1923)-->
| academic_advisors = 
| doctoral_students = [[Percy Bridgman]]
| notable_students  = 
| known_for         = 
| author_abbrev_bot = 
| author_abbrev_zoo = 
| influences        = 
| influenced        = 
| awards            = 
| signature         = <!--(filename only)-->
| signature_alt     = 
| footnotes         = 
| spouse            = 
| children          = 2
| module            = {{Infobox person|embed=yes
   | relations      = [[Annie W. S. Siebert]] (sister)
}}
}}

'''Wallace Clement Sabine''' (June 13, 1868 – January 10, 1919) was an American [[physicist]] who founded the field of [[architectural acoustics]]. Sabine was the architectural acoustician of [[Symphony Hall, Boston|Boston's Symphony Hall]], widely considered one of the two or three best [[concert hall]]s in the world for its acoustics.<ref>{{Cite journal|url={{NHLS url|id=99000633}}|title=National Historic Landmark Nomination: Symphony Hall|date=June 26, 1998 |format=PDF |author1=Gerrit Petersen |author2=Steven Ledbetter |author3=Kimberly Alexander Shilland  |name-list-style=amp |publisher=National Park Service |accessdate=2009-06-26}}</ref>

== Early life ==
Wallace Clement Sabine was born on June 13, 1868, in [[Richwood, Ohio]], of Dutch, English, French, and Scottish descent.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hall |first=Edwin H. |date=1924 |title=Biographical Memoir Wallace Clement Ware Sabine 1868-1919 |url=https://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/sabine-wallace.pdf |journal=Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences |page=1}}</ref><ref name="globe">{{Cite Q|Q116476158|pages=2}}</ref> He graduated with a [[Bachelor of Arts]] from [[Ohio State University]] in 1886 at the age of 18. He then attended [[Harvard University]] and graduated with a [[Master of Arts]] in 1888.<ref name="globe"/>

His sister was [[Annie W. S. Siebert]].<ref name="ohiostate">{{Cite book |title=Ohio State University Monthly |date=1923 |publisher=Ohio State University Alumni Association |url={{Google books|CSXOAAAAMAAJ|page=55|plainurl=yes}}|page=55}}</ref>

== Career ==
After graduating, Sabine became an assistant professor of physics at Harvard in 1889. He became an instructor in 1890 and a member of the faculty in 1892. In 1895, he became an assistant professor and in 1905, he was promoted to professor of physics.<ref name="globe"/> In October 1906, he became dean of the [[Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences|Lawrence Scientific School]], succeeding [[Nathaniel Shaler]].<ref name="globe"/>
 
Sabine's career is the story of the birth of the field of modern [[architectural acoustics]]. In 1895, acoustically improving the Fogg Lecture Hall, part of the recently constructed [[Fogg Art Museum]], was considered an impossible task by the senior staff of the [[physics]] department at Harvard. (The original Fogg Museum was designed by Richard Morris Hunt and constructed in 1893. After the completion of the present Fogg Museum the building was repurposed for academic use and renamed Hunt Hall in 1935.) <ref>Christopher Hail, Cambridge Buildings and Architects https://wayback.archive-it.org/5488/20170330145539/http://hul.harvard.edu/lib/archives/refshelf/cba/c.html</ref> The assignment was passed down until it landed on the shoulders of a young [[physics]] professor, Sabine. Although considered a popular lecturer by the students, Sabine had never received his [[PhD]] and did not have any particular background dealing with sound.

Sabine tackled the problem by trying to determine what made the Fogg Lecture Hall different from other, acoustically acceptable facilities. In particular, the [[Sanders Theater]] was considered acoustically excellent. For the next several years, Sabine and his assistants spent each night moving materials between the two lecture halls and testing the acoustics. On some nights they would borrow hundreds of seat cushions from the Sanders Theater. Using an organ pipe and a stopwatch, Sabine performed thousands of careful measurements (though inaccurate by present standards) of the time required for different frequencies of sounds to decay to inaudibility in the presence of the different materials. He tested reverberation time with several different types of Oriental rugs inside Fogg Lecture Hall, and with various numbers of people occupying its seats, and found that the body of an average person decreased reverberation time by about as much as six seat cushions. Once the measurements were taken and before morning arrived, everything was quickly replaced in both lecture halls, in order to be ready for classes the next day.

Sabine was able to determine, through the experiments, that a definitive relationship exists between the quality of the acoustics, the size of the chamber, and the amount of absorption surface present. He formally defined the [[reverberation]] time, which is still the most important characteristic currently in use for gauging the acoustical quality of a room, as number of seconds required for the intensity of the sound to drop from the starting level, by an amount of 60&nbsp;dB ([[decibels]]).

His formula<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.acoustics-engineering.com/sabin/wcsabine.htm|title = Acoustics Engineering - Sabin}}</ref> is
:<math>
T=\frac{V}{A} \cdot 0.161\,\mathrm{s\,m^{-1}}
</math>
<!-- reverberation time is in seconds -->

where
:T = the reverberation time
:V = the room volume
:A = the effective absorption area

By studying various rooms judged acoustically optimal for their intended uses, Sabine determined that acoustically appropriate concert halls had reverberation times of 2-2.25 seconds (with shorter reverberation times, a music hall seems too "dry" to the listener), while optimal lecture hall acoustics featured reverberation times of slightly under 1 second. Regarding the Fogg Museum lecture room, Sabine noted that a spoken word remained audible for about 5.5 seconds, or about an additional 12-15 words if the speaker continued talking. Listeners thus contended with a very high degree of resonance and echo. Sabine's work was continued by his cousin [[Paul Earls Sabine]] at the [[Riverbank Laboratories]] from 1919.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kranz |first=Fred W. |date=1985 |title=Early history of Riverbank Acoustical Laboratories. |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0161-118591859960 |journal=Cryptologia |language=en |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=240–246 |doi=10.1080/0161-118591859960 |issn=0161-1194}}</ref>

Using what he discovered, Sabine deployed sound absorbing materials throughout the Fogg Lecture Hall to cut its reverberation time and reduce the "echo effect." This accomplishment cemented Wallace Sabine's career, and led to his hiring as the acoustical consultant for Boston's [[Symphony Hall, Boston|Symphony Hall]], the first [[concert hall]] to be designed using quantitative acoustics. His acoustic design was successful and Symphony Hall is generally considered one of the best symphony halls in the world.

The unit of sound absorption, the [[sabin (unit of measurement)|Sabin]], was named in his honor.<ref>{{cite book |last=Backus |first=John |authorlink=John Backus (acoustician) |year=1969 |title=The Acoustical Foundations of Music |publisher=Norton |location=New York |isbn=0-393-09834-6 |lccn=68-54957 |quote=The unit of absorption is sometimes called the ''sabin'', in honor of Wallace Sabine, whose pioneering work laid the foundations for our present knowledge of the subject.}}</ref>

== Personal life ==
Sabine had a wife and two daughters.<ref name="globe"/>

== Death ==
Sabine died on January 11, 1919, at his home in [[Boston|Boston, Massachusetts]].<ref name="globe"/>

==See also==
*[[Akoustolith]]
*[[Acoustics]]
*[[Wallace Clement Sabine Medal]] of the Acoustical Society of America

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Further reading ==
*[http://people.brandeis.edu/~sekuler/SensoryProcessesMaterial/reverberation.pdf Reverberation and the Art of Architectural Acoustics]
*Emily Thompson, ''[http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10318 The soundscape of modernity : architectural acoustics and the culture of listening in America, 1900 - 1933]'' (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002).
*F. Alton  Everest, Master Handbook of Acoustics, Fourth Edition, 2001
*Wallace Clement Sabine, ''[http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/references?id=lit39364 Collected Papers on Acoustics]'' (New York: Dover Publications, 1964) [first published by Harvard University Press, 1922]
* January 10, 1919: Death of Wallace Sabine, pioneer of architectural acoustics, [http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201101/physicshistory.cfm American Physical Society News 20, January (2011)].

== External links ==
{{commons category}}
*[http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~memhall/sanders.html Sanders Theatre]
*{{MathGenealogy|id=35094}}

{{s-start}}
{{s-aca}}
{{succession box
| before=[[Benjamin Osgood Peirce]]
| title=[[Hollis Chair of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy]]
| years=1914–1919
| after=[[Theodore Lyman IV|Theodore Lyman]]
}}
{{s-end}}

{{Hollisian Professors of Mathematics}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sabine, Wallace Clement}}
[[Category:1868 births]]
[[Category:1919 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Richwood, Ohio]]
[[Category:Ohio State University alumni]]
[[Category:Harvard University alumni]]
[[Category:Harvard University faculty]]
[[Category:Hollis Chair of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy]]
[[Category:American physicists]]