The first CD that Sony and Philips developed several decades ago were very different from those that exist today. One of the most important differences was the size, since the disk at that time had a diameter of 11.5 centimeters, that is, it was slightly smaller. Why?
The story is quite curious. According to the Heraldo portal, the first compact discs were not only smaller, but also had the capacity to record 60 minutes of music. Although it seemed like a long time, there was one person who objected and asked to upgrade them to have more capacity.
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According to the post, the person who objected to CDs only having 60 minutes was Norio Ohga, then president of Sony. The man was a lover of classical music and did not conceive that compact discs cannot store the Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony”.
Although the length of Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony” varies, depending on the orchestra performing it, the longest (and most popular) was conducted by German composer Wilhelm Furtwängler at the 1951 Bayreuth Festival.
This piece of music is considered a masterpiece of its kind and has an exact duration of 74 minutes and 33 seconds.
In order for it to fit on a CD, both companies had to make it a bit bigger. Thus, it went from having a diameter of 11.5 centimeters to one of 12.7 centimeters, which became the standard.