Mersenne’s Universal Harmony 115
Figure 7.5
Mersenne ’ s diagram showing the distances traversed by freely falling bodies (left), which he converts to the
appropriate ratios needed to sound musical intervals (right). In his circular diagram, the pitches of the scale are
shown around the circumference, while the relative distance a body needs to drop to make a given interval (as
he calculates it) is shown by a chord between its two notes.