On this July 4th You Can Hear A Recreation Of The Liberty Bell’s Original Ring Sound Created By Computer Modeling Free On The Selftour Historic Philadelphia Walking Tour App™.
A founding father of America John Adams wrote that upon the announcement of the Declaration of Independence at the State House in Philadelphia that “all the bells rang all day and almost all night.” He did not specify which bells, but it is assumed the State House bell, now called the Liberty Bell, was the primary voice of independence that day.
No one living today has every heard the Liberty Bell ring freely from being clanged by its clapper. Now those freely listening to the SelfTour™ Historic Philadelphia GPS Tour App can actually hear what it sounded like.
The last time the bell rang was on George Washington’s birthday February 22, 1846. The next day the bell cracked beyond repair. It was decided that it should not be used again because it crack beyond repair. The significance of bell even then was so important no one wanted to let anything happen to it. So while the bell would not ring physically, its message of liberty would still ring out to many.
In 1915 the bell’s clapper was immobilized. Even though the bell couldn’t ring with the clapper, it was struck by a mallet seven times, once for each of the letters in the world “Liberty” to announce the 1944 allied invasion of Europe on the beaches of Normandy, France during World War II. After that it was decided never to strike the again with a mallet or anything else in order to preserve the bell for all future generations.
In 1999, graduate students from Penn State University were able to digitally create a structural model of the Liberty Bell. From this computer model, they were able to mathematically equate the vibration of the bell. Knowing that the original tone of the bell was E-flat, they were able to come up with an approximation of the original sound.
You don’t have to be in Philadelphia on July 4th to hear the bell’s sound. Any day of the year you too can hear this recreation Liberty Bell’s original sound by downloading the SelfTour™ Historic Philadelphia tour App. As you freely walk in the footsteps of America’s founders along the tour route, this app allows you to once again hear the bell ring out it’s message of liberty.
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