I once gave a lecture at Imperial College in London entitled “Science, Stradivari and Snake Oil Sellers”, exploring the publicity that scientists have gathered for themselves with theories about violins that are either poorly tested or sometimes spurious. Every year or so, someone or other backed by technology and funding of unimaginable scale comes out with a pet theory of one sort or another. When the world media reported that the mystery of Stradivari’s violins had been “solved” yet again, it deserved a common sense reply.
Read the Independent’s article of 2 July 2008 Solved: the mystery of why Stradivarius violins are best.
Read what I had to say about it: Stradivarius violins and why old violins are better than new.
