At a Los Angeles concert this week, Cellist Stephen De'ak pulled his bow lightly across a queer contraption shaped somewhat like a pneumatic drill. With no effort he produced tones large enough to fill the hall.
The gadget, called an electro-cello, was the latest of scientists' attempts to improve on the aged wood and fine Italian hand of the old violin makers. It was fashioned by Caltech's seismologist Dr. Hugo Benioff, who gave up violin playing as a boy because he couldn't stand the noise he made. Eighteen years ago, when he was designing seismographs to measure earthquakes, he decided that there...
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