I recall reading (again, a hard-to-google topic!) that before Edison invented the (cylinder) phonograph, there was a debate over whether sound could even be mea

I recall reading (again, a hard-to-google topic!) that before Edison invented the (cylinder) phonograph, there was a debate over whether sound could even be meaningfully mapped to one wave, as it was known that in any real environment there are actually multiple independent sound waves overlapping from different angles.