Giuseppe Tartini - Lettere e documenti / Pisma in dokumenti / Letters and Documents - Volume / Knjiga / Volume II

358 see how each one of them should not do that which the string does in the experiment of the French Academy; and so how instead of a third sound one should not hear other four sounds produced, which should be the two 12ths and the two 17ths of each string, which in your experiment does not happen; actually, what happens is that a sound different indeed from these is awakened. For example: Fig. III System of the Academy of Paris Fig. IV Fig. V & ww w www? ? w w wB B w w w# B w& w# w E C E suono C terzo suono + 1· 2· 3· 1· 12· 17· 1· 12· 17· Figura II Fig. III Fig. IV Fig. V Sistema dell’Accademia di Parigi Lo stesso esempio ridutto nelle corde gravi p er maggior comodo etc. + corda fondamentale segnata 1·, la corda 2· è la 12· , e la corda 3· è la 17· della fondamentale a a a a a a a a La 12· dell’antecedente ridotta e considerata come fondamentale con le sue 12· e 17· La 17· dell’antecedente ridotta e considerata come fondamentale con le sue 12· e 17· third sound + sound C E Fig. II The same example, transferred to the bass for ease of understanding, etc. The fundamental string is marked 1∙, string 2∙ is the 12th, and string 3∙ is the 17th of the fundamental The 12th of the preceeding example transferred and considered as the fundamental with its 12th and 17th The 17th of the preceeding example transferred and considered as the fundamental with its 12th and 17th in Figure II given here above, by playing the strings E and C simultaneously one awakens the fifth under the low string, that is to say a Gsolreut in the violin clef. This example for more clarity of what follows is reduced in Figure III to the bass clef, where the third sound is similarly expressed as a Gsolreut two octaves lower. In Fig. IV, with the clef placed in the contralto, according to the experiment of the French, if one played a Dlasolre one would generate the Alamire of its 12th and the Ffaut# of its 17th. Similarly in Fig. V in the violin clef, according to the same French experiment, if one played a Bfami one would awaken the FaFfaut# of its 12th and the Dlasolre of its 17th. Now, these two strings played together in your experiment do not awaken any of these twelfths or seventeenths, but a Gsolreut, a fifth below the Dlasolre, the lower string of the two played. That is to say no sound is awakened, given the conditions of the French experiment, and one completely different from these four is awakened. From here it follows that one could doubt one or the other experiment if we do not wish to say that nature is inconstant in its operations; if one would rather not want to suspect of some randomness unknown to us, which makes the experiment insufficient to give the impression of a stable principle, given that at the very least it lacks the agreement it should have with the other principles. It is worth saying that the strings in the experiment of Your Most Illustrious Lordship may perhaps vary because they are played simultaneously, so that is the condition required by nature to produce the effect of the French experiment; for the fact that no other condition is sought there, if