Tuning with a fork [fork partials]

[Jenneetah]

At 6:30 PM -0300 8/23/04, John Ross wrote:
>It stands to reason, if it were called harmonic distortion, it would 
>have harmonics.

As I understand it, it's a term from the measurement of electronic 
circuits, usually, audio amplifiers. What it means was the extent to 
which a pure sine (first partial and no others) wave fed into a 
circuit would have its energy transferred from that first partial 
into the upper partials. If you can a get a pure sine wave out, the 
circuit is leaving the signal undistorted.