The Brain That Trains: History and Science of Binaural Beats

In 1839, the Prussian physicist Heinrich Wilhelm Dove discovered something unexpected: if a sound at 200 Hz reaches the left ear and one at 210 Hz reaches the right, the brain does not perceive two separate frequencies. It generates a third — 10 Hz — which does not exist in the environment, but is produced internally by the auditory cortex. Dove called it binaural beating. At the time, no one imagined where this discovery would lead.