The Design and Function of Cochlear Implants

Fusing medicine, neural science and engineering, these devices transform human speech into an electrical code that deafened ears can understand

Michael Dorman, Blake Wilson

Imagining Beethoven Today

We wonder how Beethoven might feel if he were alive today and had received a cochlear implant. We expect he would understand speech well enough to "relax in human society" and engage in "refined conversations" and "mutual confidences." He would avoid the isolation that caused his despair. The sound of his art, however, would certainly fail to bring him joy. We will need many more years of hard work and good luck to make this time–travel story end with an idyllic, or, if you like, a pastoral tune.

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