Where does the "hydrogen" come from in hydrogenAudio?

2016-11-14 03:04:08

I don't get the "audio" connection. The only thing I can think of is that hydrogen is #1 on the periodic table. Ergo, hydrogenAudio is the #1 audio forum? Maybe?  

Re: Where does the "hydrogen" come from in hydrogenAudio?

Reply #1 – 2016-11-14 03:47:38

I found a very old post by the mighty JohnV at the Winamp forum: http://forums.winamp.com/showpost.php?s=af9ebb97c08c7561e3861306c2bf34f1&p=359342&postcount=1
It must be this page was meant to host "Hydrogen audio Tools"
Why the developers of that Software choosed Hydrogen for their tools is another story.

Re: Where does the "hydrogen" come from in hydrogenAudio?

Reply #2 – 2016-11-14 04:06:44

Nice find. I haven't been here from the beginning, but i do remember when it it had the dot-org extension. 

Re: Where does the "hydrogen" come from in hydrogenAudio?

Reply #3 – 2016-11-14 13:17:00

Here is the earliest page that web.archiver.org captured: https://web.archive.org/web/20011030133642/http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/
The part of the FAQ about the Hydrogen audio tools was captured once, and ... not much there
https://web.archive.org/web/20020709034508/http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Project_Mayhem_FAQ&file=index&myfaq=yes&id_cat=2&categories=Hydrogen+Audio+Tools

Re: Where does the "hydrogen" come from in hydrogenAudio?

Reply #4 – 2016-12-08 17:08:41

In my mind, and I never assumed this was the reason they chose but in my mind, this is a community about the science of digital audio and just like a bit is the smallest unit of digital data, hydrogen is basically just a proton (usually with an electron but not as an ion) which is the smallest element on the periodic table.

So I always thought of the Hydrogen as referencing the science of digital.

But I doubt that's why they chose it, it's just the association my brain made.

Re: Where does the "hydrogen" come from in hydrogenAudio?

Reply #5 – 2016-12-09 15:34:04

That's a pretty good association. I can go with that.  

Re: Where does the "hydrogen" come from in hydrogenAudio?

Reply #6 – 2016-12-09 20:14:21

Actually, my association was as follows:

Take a certain substance necessary for life: H₂O.
Which has hydrogen, and then something which also is also absolutely for us to have in the air around us (... audio).

Now playing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Is_Like_Oxygen

Re: Where does the "hydrogen" come from in hydrogenAudio?

Reply #7 – 2016-12-11 02:08:14

ok now I feel super weird. I always assumed that hydrogen audio was a clever play about H0 for null hypothesis...