Science & Mathematics

The Museum's collections hold thousands of objects related to chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, and other sciences. Instruments range from early American telescopes to lasers. Rare glassware and other artifacts from the laboratory of Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, are among the scientific treasures here. A Gilbert chemistry set of about 1937 and other objects testify to the pleasures of amateur science. Artifacts also help illuminate the social and political history of biology and the roles of women and minorities in science.

The mathematics collection holds artifacts from slide rules and flash cards to code-breaking equipment. More than 1,000 models demonstrate some of the problems and principles of mathematics, and 80 abstract paintings by illustrator and cartoonist Crockett Johnson show his visual interpretations of mathematical theorems.

Ira Freeman was a professor of physics at Rutgers University, and Mae Freeman an active author of beginner's books on a variety of topics.
Description
Ira Freeman was a professor of physics at Rutgers University, and Mae Freeman an active author of beginner's books on a variety of topics. Before 1957 the couple had collaborated on such popular science books as Fun With Chemistry (1944) and Fun With Astronomy (1953).
With the launch of Sputnik , the Freemans began writing books related to space travel. You Will go to the Moon and The Sun, the Moon and the Stars were both published in 1959. They also began to write scientific books for use in the home. Fun With Science (1958) was quickly followed by Fun With Scientific Experiments (1960).
Fun With Scientific Experiments was supplemented with the "Ed-U-Cards of Science."
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1960
maker
Random House, Inc.
ID Number
2007.0041.02
catalog number
2007.0041.02
accession number
2007.0041
The 19th-century German pharmacist Karl Friedrich Mohr developed calibrated pipettes like this these for transferring specific amounts of a liquid. The quantity transferred was measured by changes in the height of the liquid.
Description
The 19th-century German pharmacist Karl Friedrich Mohr developed calibrated pipettes like this these for transferring specific amounts of a liquid. The quantity transferred was measured by changes in the height of the liquid. Mohr pipettes were manufactured by the Kimble Glass Company at its factory in Vineland, New Jersey from at least 1920.
By the mid-1920s, Kimble had a special line of "Kollegiate" glassware for high school and freshman college courses. This included two sets of Mohr pipettes. From 1959, Mohr pipettes were among the goods that could be purchased for use in high school biology and chemistry classes with matching funds from the U.S. federal government provided by the National Defense Education Act.
This particular pipette was sold under the name Kimax 51, a trademark first used by Kimble Glass Company in 1963. Calibrated at a temperature of 20 degrees centigrade, it held up to 10 milliliters, with divisions to 1/10 of a milliliter. It is a Kimax -51 Model 37019, in a size M. The orange mark near the top identifies the size and helped in sorting glassware.
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Kimax
ID Number
1998.0020.09
catalog number
1998.0020.09
accession number
1998.0020
This globe is 6 inches in diameter, with the moon's major known topographical features painted on in shades of gray, green, and black.
Description
This globe is 6 inches in diameter, with the moon's major known topographical features painted on in shades of gray, green, and black. A 60-degree-wide area on the far side of the moon is left blank on this globe, as these features were unknown at the time the globe was printed.
With the globe came an eight page booklet The Story of the Moon, written by Robert I. Johnson.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1963
date received
1965 or 1966
maker
Replogle Globes
ID Number
PH.326612
accession number
268427
catalog number
326612
This moon globe is 6 inches in diameter, with topographical features painted in shades of white, gray and tan. Three lunar landings are located and labeled.
Description
This moon globe is 6 inches in diameter, with topographical features painted in shades of white, gray and tan. Three lunar landings are located and labeled. One is the U.S.S.R.'s LUNIK 2, dated 9/12/59, and described as "First unmanned spacecraft to reach the moon." The second is the RANGER 4, dated 4/26/62, and described as "First U.S. unmanned spacecraft to reach the Moon." And there is the site of the U.S. APOLLO 11, dated 7/20/69, and described as "First manned spacecraft landing."
With the globe came a twelve-page booklet written by Robert I. Johnson, and titled The Story of the Moon. The cover shows a view of the moon composed from satellite photographs and carries the notation: "This book dedicated to the Flight of Apollo 8."
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1969
maker
Replogle Globes, Inc.
ID Number
1990.0015.02
accession number
1990.0015
catalog number
1990.0015.02
The 19th-century German pharmacist Karl Friedrich Mohr developed calibrated pipettes for adding specific amounts of one liquid to another. The Fisher Scientific Company sold Mohr pipettes like this one for routine or educational work, as its catalog number 13-665.
Description
The 19th-century German pharmacist Karl Friedrich Mohr developed calibrated pipettes for adding specific amounts of one liquid to another. The Fisher Scientific Company sold Mohr pipettes like this one for routine or educational work, as its catalog number 13-665. From the mid-1960s, they were sold under the FISHER-brand label, as this example was. It is a style K, having a capacity of 5 milliliters, divided to 1/10 of a milliliter and calibrated at a temperature of 20 degrees centigrade.
Fisher also sold a range of pipettes manufactured by other firms such as the Kimble Glass Company and Corning Glass Company. Mohr pipettes were among the goods that could be purchased for high school chemistry and biology classes in the late 1950s and 1960s with matching funds from the U.S. government.
Location
Currently not on view
producer
Mohr, Karl Friedrich
maker
Fisher Scientific Company
ID Number
1998.0020.12
catalog number
1998.0020.12
accession number
1998.0020
The remarkable advances in electronics and microwave technology made during World War II stimulated the physicists who had worked on them to imagine new applications after the war for peacetime conditions.
Description
The remarkable advances in electronics and microwave technology made during World War II stimulated the physicists who had worked on them to imagine new applications after the war for peacetime conditions. An outstanding example is the cesium-beam frequency standard, one of several types of "atomic clock" developed in the postwar years.
This is the experimental instrument built under the supervision of Jerrold Zacharias at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954. It showed that the atomic beam principle was feasible as a technique for extremely precise timekeeping, and paved the way immediately for a commercial version closely modeled on it.
The idea on which it relied had been known for two decades. The American physicist I. I. Rabi had applied it in the late 1930s to precise measurements of the magnetic moments and "spins" of nuclei of various kinds of atoms. Rabi knew that atoms behave as tiny magnets: a beam of them, traveling in a vacuum, can be deflected slightly by passing through a non-uniform magnetic field.
Furthermore, the strength of the atomic magnet, and its direction relative to that of the magnetic field, can be altered by microwaves whose frequency exactly matches (is in resonance with) a frequency characteristic of the atoms used in the experiment. Rabi's apparatus detected the change in deflection of the atomic beam when this resonance occurred.
In 1953, Zacharias, who as a graduate student had collaborated in Rabi's prewar experiments, started vigorous work on making such an atomic-beam apparatus function as a clock. By the next summer, he and his student R. D. Haun, assisted by visiting researcher J. G. Yates, were able to make the atomic vibrations of a cesium beam control a crystal oscillator, whose frequency then became as precise as that of the cesium atoms. This oscillator frequency in turn could be used for timekeeping far more precise than any previously possible.
The device shown is the atomic beam portion, the heart of the system, which was enclosed in a tall vacuum chamber when in use. Cesium atoms boiled out of an oven near the bottom and formed a beam, which passed a deflecting magnet, and then traversed a space in which it was subjected to the oscillating microwave field. It then passed a second deflecting magnet, which served to bring the atoms to a focus, as in Rabi's method, on a detector. This determined any deviation from resonance and sent a signal to circuits which adjusted the microwave frequency accordingly.
Zacharias's apparatus is noteworthy for being designed as a prototype for an instrument intended to be sold commercially. Unlike the traditional horizontal atomic beam apparatus, this one stood compactly vertical. It used permanent magnets rather than electromagnets; had convenient connections for vacuum pump, electronics, and microwaves; and had an oven designed to run for a long time without stopping. Zacharias persuaded the National Company, a manufacturer of radio equipment in nearby Malden, Mass., to take on the task of developing a commercial version under his supervision. After overcoming many difficulties, they began delivering the "Atomichron" in the autumn of 1956, mainly to military laboratories. Despite its high cost, $50,000, it sold well to those laboratories, and the Signal Corps declared that it "performed well beyond all expectations."
Reference: Paul Forman, "'Atomichron': The Atomic Clock from Concept to Commercial Product," Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 73, No. 7, July 1985, pp. 1811-1204.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1955
maker
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
ID Number
EM.319767
catalog number
319767
accession number
254080
From the 1860s, chemists have used three-dimensional models as aids to teaching and research. Many early models resembled Tinkertoys, with balls representing atoms and connectors signifying chemical bonds.
Description
From the 1860s, chemists have used three-dimensional models as aids to teaching and research. Many early models resembled Tinkertoys, with balls representing atoms and connectors signifying chemical bonds. From the 1930s, some research chemists and molecular biologists found it more useful to represent atoms by large, space-filling spheres or other shapes, as this better mimicked their physical properties. Such space-filling models were developed by scientists Robert B. Corey, Linus Pauling and Walter Koltun. They sold as CPK models, after the initials of their names.
Representing chemical bonds appropriately was important to the teaching reform efforts of the 1960s. However, CPK models were too expensive for most classrooms. The Wisconsin firm of Science Related Materials sold these molded polystyrene space-filling molecular models both for research and classroom use.
A complete version of this kit included 60 color-coded atomic units, a package of connectors, a ruler with dimensions indicated in Angstroms, and an instruction booklet. Schools and colleges that purchased SRM Molecular Fragments could receive matching funds from the U.S. government.
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
1994.0019.35
accession number
1994.0019
catalog number
1994.0019.35
While studying physics with Arnold Romberg at the University of Texas in 1933, Lucien LaCoste designed a seismometer with a so-called "zero length spring." LaCoste and Romberg formed a partnership in 1939 and began making seismometers and then gravity meters incorporating springs
Description
While studying physics with Arnold Romberg at the University of Texas in 1933, Lucien LaCoste designed a seismometer with a so-called "zero length spring." LaCoste and Romberg formed a partnership in 1939 and began making seismometers and then gravity meters incorporating springs of this sort.
As gravity meters became ever more precise, LaCoste realized that they could be used to measure earth tides. H. Neal Clarkson, a machinist at LaCoste & Romberg, designed and built the first earth tide meter under LaCoste's direction, this work serving as Clarkson's dissertation project for a PhD in physics from the University of Texas.
The DL-1 was an improved instrument that could detect variations in gravity of the order of one microgal, or one part in a billion. It was built by LaCoste & Romberg in 1953 and installed in the firm's workshop in Austin, Texas. The Institute of Geophysics at UCLA acquired the DL-1 for the worldwide survey of earth tides that it conducted during the International Geophysical Year 1957-1958. The Institute donated the instrument to the Smithsonian in 2000.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1953
maker
LaCoste & Romberg
ID Number
2000.0194.01
catalog number
2000.0194.01
accession number
2000.0194
In 1963, the biology department at Jamaica High School in Queens, New York, published this pamphlet for its students. Forty-two laboratory exercises are described.
Description
In 1963, the biology department at Jamaica High School in Queens, New York, published this pamphlet for its students. Forty-two laboratory exercises are described. These include observations with a microscope, dissection of a frog, and study of digestion, blood circulation, respiration, and reproduction. Other units concern evolution. The final exercise is a campus field trip. Each section sets a problem, describes procedures for solving it, and has a series of summary questions. There are scattered illustrations done by students at the school. The cover shows a compound microscope and nerve cells.
Teresa E. Fusco Nugent (1924-2013), the donor, studied in biochemistry at St. John’s University, earned a M.A. in bacteriology, and became a research scientist at Charles Pfizer. She later taught biology at Mary Louis Academy in Jamaica, N.Y., and biology at Benjamin Cardoza High School.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1963
ID Number
1993.0287.01
catalog number
1993.0287.01
accession number
1993.0287
Instruments of this sort, which projected the image of objects placed on them, came into use in the second half of the nineteenth century. The “J. Duboscq / à Paris / No.
Description
Instruments of this sort, which projected the image of objects placed on them, came into use in the second half of the nineteenth century. The “J. Duboscq / à Paris / No. 54” inscription on this example refers to Jules Duboscq, an important scientific instrument maker in Paris.
This form came to be known, in the twentieth century, as a viewgraph or an overhead projector.
Ref: J. Duboscq, “Appareil pour la projection des corps placés horizontalement,” Journal de Physique Theorique et Appliquee 5 (1876): 216-218.
Debbie Griggs, “Projection Apparatus for Science in Late Nineteenth Century America,” Rittenhouse 7 (1992): 9-15.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
after 1876
1834-1844
1870s
maker
Duboscq, Jules
ID Number
PH.315416
catalog number
315416
accession number
217544
28 scientific "flash cards" intended to supplement Mae and Ira Freeman's Fun With Scientific Experiments. Like the book, these "Ed-U-Cards" (published by Random House around 1960) were designed for elementary school students to use at home.
Description
28 scientific "flash cards" intended to supplement Mae and Ira Freeman's Fun With Scientific Experiments. Like the book, these "Ed-U-Cards" (published by Random House around 1960) were designed for elementary school students to use at home. The accompanying brochure describes their use:
"The simple experiments all using safe material usually found in the average household, should be performed at the first reading and only the very young will need adult assistance. Note that the cards should be read and kept in their numerical sequence since the information is 'programmed' with one card revealing a scientific truth that aids in the understanding of the following card. Naturally, the more time the child spends with the cards after the first reading, the more knowledge he will acquire."
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1960
maker
Random House, Inc.
ID Number
2007.0041.01
catalog number
2007.0041.01
accession number
2007.0041
Berenice Abbott's photograph, Pendulum (Small Arc), is a stop-motion photograph.
Description (Brief)
Berenice Abbott's photograph, Pendulum (Small Arc), is a stop-motion photograph. Although the photographer is more well-known for her 1930s abstracted views of New York City's architecture, she wanted to improve the quality of photography for scientists.
Abbott devised apparatus and techniques to capture various phenomena. Beginning in 1958, she created photographs for the Physical Science Study Committee, a program to reform high school physics teaching. This picture illustrating the swing of a pendulum appeared in 1969 in The Attractive Universe: Gravity and the Shape of Space.
Description
During the 1920s, Berenice Abbott was one of the premier portrait photographers of Paris, her only competitor was the equally well-known Dada Surrealist Man Ray who had served as her mentor and employer before she launched her own career. An American expatriate, Abbott enjoyed the company of some of the great twentieth century writers and artists, photographing individuals such as Jean Cocteau, Peggy Guggenheim and James Joyce. One of the critical elements of Abbott’s portraiture was a desire to neither enhance nor interfere with the sitter. She instead wished to allow the personality of her subject to dictate the form of the photograph, and would often sit with her clients for several hours before she even began to photograph them. This straight-forward approach to photography characterized Abbott’s work for the duration of her career.
Thematically and technically, Abbott’s work can be most closely linked to documentary photographer Eugène Atget (COLL.PHOTOS.000016), who photographed Paris during the early 1900s. Abbott bought a number of his prints the first time she saw them, and even asked him to set some aside that she planned to purchase when she had enough money. After his death in 1927, Abbott took it upon herself to publicize Atget’s work to garner the recognition it deserved. It was partly for this reason she returned to the United States in 1928, hoping to find an American publisher to produce an English-language survey of Atget’s work. Amazed upon her arrival to see the changes New York had undergone during her stay in Paris, and eager to photograph the emerging new metropolis, Abbott decided to pack up her lucrative Parisian portrait business and move back to New York.
The status and prestige she enjoyed in Paris, however, did not carry over to New York. Abbott did not fit in easily with her contemporaries. She was both a woman in a male-dominated field and a documentary photographer in the midst of an American photographic world firmly rooted in Pictorialism. Abbott recalls disliking the work of both photographer Alfred Stieglitz and his then protégé Paul Strand when she first visited their exhibitions in New York. Stieglitz, along with contemporaries such as Ansel Adams and Edward Steichen, tended to romanticize the American landscape and effectively dismissed Abbott’s straight photography as she saw it. Not only was Atget’s work rejected by the Pictorialists, but a series of critical comments she made towards Stieglitz and Pictorialism cost Abbott her professional career as a photographer. Afterwards, she was unable to secure space at galleries, have her work shown at museums or continue the working relationships she had forged with a number of magazine publications.
In 1935, the Federal Art Project outfitted Abbott with equipment and a staff to complete her project to photograph New York City. The benefit of a personal staff and the freedom to determine her own subject matter was unique among federally funded artists working at that time. The resulting series of photographs, which she titled Changing New York, represent some of Abbott’s best-known work. Her photographs of New York remain one of the most important twentieth century pictorial records of New York City. Abbott went on to produce a series of photographs for varied topics, including scientific textbooks and American suburbs. When the equipment was insufficient to meet her photographic needs, as in the case of her series of science photographs, she invented the tools she needed to achieve the desired effect. In the course of doing so, Abbott patented a number of useful photographic aids throughout her career including an 8x10 patent camera (patent #2869556) and a photographer’s jacket. Abbott also spent twenty years teaching photography classes at the New School for Social Research alongside such greats as composer Aaron Copland and writer W.E.B. DuBois.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Abbott’s career was the printing of Eugène Atget’s photographs, one of the few instances in which one well-known photographer printed a large number of negatives made by another well-known photographer. The struggle to get Atget’s photographs the recognition they deserved was similar to Abbott’s efforts to chart her own path by bringing documentary photography to the fore in a Pictorialist dominated America. Though she experienced varying levels of rejection and trials in both efforts, her perseverance placed her in the position she now holds as one of the great photographers of the twentieth century.
The Bernice Abbott collection consists of sixteen silver prints. The photographs represent a range of work Abbott produced during her lifetime, including her early portraiture work in Paris, her Changing New York series, Physics and Route 1, U.S.A. series.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1950s
photographer
Abbott, Berenice
ID Number
PG.69.216.15
catalog number
69.216.15
accession number
288852
In the late 19th century, the Russian chemist Dimitry Ivanovich Mendeleev developed several charts in which chemical elements were grouped according to common properties.
Description
In the late 19th century, the Russian chemist Dimitry Ivanovich Mendeleev developed several charts in which chemical elements were grouped according to common properties. The atomic theory of matter developed over the next century suggested that these groupings could be explained by similarities in atomic structure.
In 1924, Henry D. Hubbard of the U.S. National Bureau of Standards prepared a "Periodic Chart of the Atoms" that included symbols for the elements, atomic numbers, atomic weights, and descriptions of atomic structure. In the course of the twentieth century, numerous new elements were discovered and added to the chart. Physical data on the properties of elements also was incorporated. Wall charts became a fixture of the chemistry classroom.
The Periodic Chart of the Atoms was revised regularly by the NBS and published by the W. M. Welch Science Company of Chicago. This is the 1963 version of the chart, as prepared by spectroscopist William F. Meggars. High schools could purchase the charts with aid from the U.S. government. Some chemists working on curriculum projects of the time also prepared new forms of the periodic table.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1963
maker
Welch Scientific Company
ID Number
1994.0019.01
accession number
1994.0019
catalog number
1994.0019.01
From the 1920s, psychologists have explored ways to automate teaching. In the 1950s, the psychologist B. F. Skinner of Harvard University suggested that techniques he had developed for training rats and pigeons might be adopted for teaching humans.
Description
From the 1920s, psychologists have explored ways to automate teaching. In the 1950s, the psychologist B. F. Skinner of Harvard University suggested that techniques he had developed for training rats and pigeons might be adopted for teaching humans. He used this apparatus teaching a Harvard course in natural sciences.
The machine is a rectangular wooden box with a hinged metal lid with windows. Various paper discs fit inside, with questions and answers written along radii of the discs. One question at a time appears in the window nearer the center. The student writes an answer on a paper tape to the right and advances the mechanism. This reveals the correct answer but covers his answer so that it may not be changed.
Skinner's "programmed learning" was refined and adopted in many classrooms in the 1960s. It underlies techniques still used in instruction for the office, the home and the school.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1957
maker
Skinner, B. F.
ID Number
MA.335539
accession number
318945
catalog number
335539
This set of 21 games taught principles of modern logic. Players learned to combine grammatically correct logical statements called well-formed formulae (WFFs) into logical proofs. WFF 'N Proof was developed by Layman E.
Description
This set of 21 games taught principles of modern logic. Players learned to combine grammatically correct logical statements called well-formed formulae (WFFs) into logical proofs. WFF 'N Proof was developed by Layman E. Allan of Yale University Law School under a grant from the Carnegie Corporation for ALL (Accelerated Learning of Logic). Allen applied for a trademark for WFF ‘N Proof in August 1961; it was registered the following year but has now expired. The game sold from 1962.
The set includes 18 wooden cubes with small letters, representing sentences, and 18 with large letters, representing logical rules of inference. The simplest of the games in WFF ‘N Proof were designed to teach young children how to arrange these cubes on a series of paper mats to form WFFs. The remaining games were meant to teach how to argue logically. These games involve assuming the truth of WFFs of certain forms and concluding the truth of WFFs of other forms using logical rules of inference. Thus players proved theorems but did not use that terminology. The most advanced of these games were designed to challenge college students.
The set also includes a timer, a book of instructions written by Allen, WFF ‘N Proof: The Game of Modern Logic (New Haven: Autotelic Instructional Materials Publishers, 1970), and a leaflet describing "Games for Thinkers" from WFF 'N PROOF Publishers of Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania. All these materials are stored in a plastic case that is marked on the cover: WFF'N PROOF (/) The Game of Modern Logic.
In 1968 Layman Allen moved from Yale to the University of Michigan with a joint appointment in the Law School and the Mental Health Research Institute, where he continued his work on instructional games. Over the years the name and location of the distributor of WFF ‘N Proof changed, although the phrase “Games for Thinkers” has been associated with it from before Allen’s move to Ann Arbor. Price lists in the WFF ‘N PROOF Newsletters (part of the documentation in accession 317891) indicate that at first the game was distributed by WFF ‘N PROOF in New Haven, Connecticut, and sold for $6.00. In 1970 the price was raised to $8.00 and in 1971 the game was distributed by WFF ‘N PROOF through Maple Packers in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania. At some point a firm called Learning Game Associates of Ann Arbor took over distribution of the game and donated this example to the Smithsonian in 1975. Later the Accelerated Learning Foundation of Fairfield, Iowa, became the distributor.
Reference: Games For Thinkers Website.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970
developer
Allen, Layman E.
maker
Learning Games Associates
ID Number
MA.335302
accession number
317891
catalog number
335302
In the early twentieth century, a growing proportion of American children attended public schools. However, some continued to prefer private academies.
Description
In the early twentieth century, a growing proportion of American children attended public schools. However, some continued to prefer private academies. For example, the Thurston Prep School, founded in Shadyside, Pennsylvania, in 1887, was devoted to teacher training for young women. A similar school in Shadyside – which also had young boys as students – was established in 1902 and soon named the Winchester School. Financial difficulties at the time of the Depression led to a merger of the two schools in 1935 – male students were then limited to kindergarten and first grade, and the curriculum resembled public elementary schools and high schools. Winchester Thurston moved to new premises in 1967, and at about that time purchased this teaching slide rule. The instrument was donated to the Smithsonian by the school through the good offices of Frances Glockler Hein (1923-2012). Mrs. Hein, as she was known to students, was born in California, raised in Minneapolis, and attended the University of Iowa. In late 1943 she graduated from iowa with a B.A. in mathematics. The next year she married a slightly older University of Iowa student, Richard E. Hein, who then was studying chemistry at Iowa State University and working on the Manhattan Project. They soon had four sons. By 1964, the boys were sufficiently grown for her to take a position at Winchester Thurston, where she taught mathematics for over twenty years.
In 1967, Winchester Thurston moved to a new campus. At about that time, the school acquired this 79-inch demonstration slide rule. It is made of painted wood, with a plastic cursor that has a wooden frame. In the early seventeenth century, the Scottish mathematician John Napier had discovered functions known as logarithms which make it possible to reduce problems of multiplication, division, and taking the roots of numbers to additions and subtractions. On a slide rule, the logarithms of numbers are represented as lengths. To multiply, one length is set on the base, and another added to it using the slide. The sum of the logarithms, which gives the product, is read off using the cursor. This slide rule also has scales for finding the squares, cubes, square roots, and cube roots of numbers.
Slide rules had first became popular in the United States in the 1890s, especially among engineers and scientists. Use of the device was taught in high schools and universities using oversized instruments like this. During the 1960s, the United States placed new emphasis on teaching mathematics and science. By the late 1970s, slide rules would be almost entirely displaced by handheld electronic calculators.
References:
Yearbooks and student newspapers of the University of Iowa.
Registrar's Office, University of Iowa.
Online obituary of Frances G. Hein at tributes.com.
Winchester Thurston School, Thistle Talk Commemorative Edition, vol. 39 #1, Summer, 2010.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1967
fabricator
Keuffel & Esser Co.
ID Number
1987.0137.01
accession number
1987.0137
catalog number
1987.0137.01
This Russian abacus, or tchoty has a well-finished wooden frame, eight metal rods for carrying the beads, and plastic beads that move along the rods. Seven rods have four red beads, two purple beads, and then another four red beads.
Description
This Russian abacus, or tchoty has a well-finished wooden frame, eight metal rods for carrying the beads, and plastic beads that move along the rods. Seven rods have four red beads, two purple beads, and then another four red beads. The other rod (the fourth from the bottom) has one red bead, two purple beads, and then another red bead. Loose inside the paper box are a small gray slip of paper and a larger beige paper, which appears to be a sales receipt.
This abacus was purchased in August 1965 by George W. Sims of California. Sims, who was born in about 1898, was a tax collector, certified public accountant, world traveller, and collector. Handwritten notations on the cardboard box in which the instrument was received indicate when it was purchased and state that it came from Smolensk in the Russian SSR, and cost the equivalent of 61 American cents. Documentation received in the same accession as the abacus (1988.0489.02) relates to the Chinese abacus, not this one.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1965
ID Number
1988.0489.01
catalog number
1988.0489.01
accession number
1988.0489
Armand Spitz (1904-1971) was a newspaperman and science educator who began developing planetariums in the early 1940s. His planetariums proliferated in the aftermath of Sputnik, and may be said to have democratized astronomy education.
Description
Armand Spitz (1904-1971) was a newspaperman and science educator who began developing planetariums in the early 1940s. His planetariums proliferated in the aftermath of Sputnik, and may be said to have democratized astronomy education. Inexpensive and easy to use, they brought planetarium shows into schools, colleges, and other community buildings around the country. The A2, introduced in the summer of 1958, was the most popular model. This example was made by the Spitz Laboratories, Inc. in Yorklyn, Delaware, and was used at Montgomery College in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Ref: “Armand N. Spitz, Astronomer, Dies,” Washington Post (April 16, 1971), p. C10.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1960
inventor
Spitz, Armand
maker
Spitz Laboratories, Inc.
ID Number
1988.0477.01
accession number
1988.0477
catalog number
1988.0477.01
The slide rule is a device to assist in multiplication, division and other mathematical operations. Invented in the 1600s, it became popular in American science and engineering in the 1890s.
Description
The slide rule is a device to assist in multiplication, division and other mathematical operations. Invented in the 1600s, it became popular in American science and engineering in the 1890s. By the 1930s, slide rule use was taught in high schools.
From 1962 until 1972, Harvard University faculty cooperated with others in developing a humanistically oriented high school physics course that might attract more students to the subject. Staff developed not only textbooks, handbooks, transparencies and film loops but this extremely simple and inexpensive plastic slide rule.
The instrument has two circular logarithmic scales for multiplication and division (most elementary slide rules also had scales for taking squares and square roots). There also are linear scales of inches and centimeters.
A stylized bubble chamber image, the logo of Project Physics, appears over the rule. The slide rule was designed so that "Harvard Project Physics" showed just over the shirt pocket of a boy carrying it. This design may reflect the fact that there were no female undergraduates at Harvard College at the time. Not long after this slide rule was made, inexpensive pocket calculators displaced the slide rule.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1965
ID Number
1988.0539.01
accession number
1988.0539
catalog number
1988.0539.01
The ripple tank demonstrated a variety of wave phenomena, and was the best known device created by the Physical Sciences Study Committee (PSSC). It was introduced in the late 1950s and remained essentially unchanged for 50 years.
Description
The ripple tank demonstrated a variety of wave phenomena, and was the best known device created by the Physical Sciences Study Committee (PSSC). It was introduced in the late 1950s and remained essentially unchanged for 50 years. In this example, the tank is made of glass with wooden sides and 4 aluminum legs. A support rod, V-shaped base, and clamps hold the high power lamp. Two wooden square rods serve as straight wave generators; each is equipped with a small motor. There are, in addition, several yellow ball wave generators and several foam rubber baffles.
The light source consists of a 150-watt glass lamp mounted in a well-ventilated flat black shield. Its box is marked: The Science Source®. This firm was established in Waldoboro, Maine, in 1986. It is still in business and still selling light sources of this sort. See http://thesciencesource.com
References: PSSC, "Physics Laboratory Guide" (1960), pp. 26-33 (photos and diagrams of several ripple tank set-ups).
Central Scientific Company, "Educational Catalog" (1974), p. 48 (for ripple tank).
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
late 1950s
maker
Physical Science Study Committee
ID Number
2007.0043.05
catalog number
2007.0043.05
accession number
2007.0043
This wooden cart was designed to show the relation between a force exerted on an object and the velocity of that object. It was simple and inexpensive, made from short pieces of 2" x 4" and three roller skate wheels.
Description
This wooden cart was designed to show the relation between a force exerted on an object and the velocity of that object. It was simple and inexpensive, made from short pieces of 2" x 4" and three roller skate wheels. This example was made by Grisell and Kaiel, students at Benson Polytechnic High School in Portland, Oregon, in the early 1960s.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
early 1960s
ID Number
2007.0040.01
catalog number
2007.0040.01
accession number
2007.0040
Mathematics has long had a prominent place in American education at all levels. In part for this reason, during the 1950s and 1960s there were at least nine important programs to improve math teaching in the United States.
Description
Mathematics has long had a prominent place in American education at all levels. In part for this reason, during the 1950s and 1960s there were at least nine important programs to improve math teaching in the United States. One of oldest was the University of Illinois Committee on School Mathematics, established in 1951.
The UICSM developed an introductory course in high school mathematics. Materials included these programmed textbooks, which covered some of the same material as a more conventional textbook. Information and questions appear on one page, and the next page reveals the answer. Turning the book upside down gives a new set of questions and answers.
Topics were often explained with cartoon-like drawings. A total of four books were needed for the semester-long course. As in other curriculum projects, these programmed textbooks were reproduced cheaply for classroom trials. In this case, they did not go beyond the experimental stage.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1963
maker
University of Illinois Committee on School Mathematics
ID Number
2006.3052.01
catalog number
2006.3052.01
nonaccession number
2006.3052
Wooden blocks and rods have long been used to teach young children about numbers and basic arithmetic. These are such a tool. They vary in length from 1 cm. to 10 cm., representing the numbers from 1 to 10. All rods of a given length are the same color.
Description
Wooden blocks and rods have long been used to teach young children about numbers and basic arithmetic. These are such a tool. They vary in length from 1 cm. to 10 cm., representing the numbers from 1 to 10. All rods of a given length are the same color. They are stored in a cloth bag. This set was designed by Emile-Georges Cuisenaire (1891-1976), a Belgian schoolteacher. Cuisenaire published an account of his rods in French in 1953 and attracted the attention of the Egyptian-born educator Caleb Gattegno (1910-1988).
After the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, better instruction in science and mathematics became a national priority in the U.S. Scientists, mathematicians, and educators introduced objects like Cuisenaire rods to communicate to students their enthusiasm for basic principles.
This set was donated by Coralee Critchfield. Gilliland. She was born in 1932 in Nebraska and grew up in Tecumseh, Nebraska, a town of about 3,000 inhabitants. She received a B.A. from Lindenwood College in St. Charles, Missouri, and a M.A. in the History of Art from the University of Chicago.
Gilliland used the rods as an educator in Micronesia. She and her husband Thomas Gilliland first went there from 1957 to1959, where he had an administrative position with the Department of the Interior (then the governing authority in the area) in Majuro, Marshall Islands. She worked training elementary school teachers in the use of devices like Cuisenaire rods, and found that they were particularly suitable for teaching those whose primary language was not English. The Gillillands would return to Micronesia in the early 1960s, where Cory Gillilland served for a time as principal of the Truk high school. On her return to the United States, Gillilland became much involved in the Numismatics collections at the Smithsonian, publishing a monograph on stone money of Micronesia.
References:
Accession file.
Coralee C. Gillilland, The Stone Money of Yap: A Numismatic Survey. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1975.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1965
date received
1987
ID Number
1987.0542.01
catalog number
1987.0542.01
accession number
1987.0542
In the mid-1960s, most children had never seen an electronic computer. However, they had heard stories of the power of these giant instruments and knew that they were associated with space flight.
Description
In the mid-1960s, most children had never seen an electronic computer. However, they had heard stories of the power of these giant instruments and knew that they were associated with space flight. This toy brought the mathematical principles of the digital computer into the home. The manual describes several problems that could be set up, including a basic check out of whether the device was functioning properly, counting down from 7 to 1 in binary, logical riddles, and the game of NIM. There is a special piece that can be used to represent the logical operation "or." The toy was made by E.S.R., Inc. of Orange and Montclair, New Jersey. It sold for about $5.00.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1965
date received
1977
maker
E.S.R., Incorporated
ID Number
1978.0067.59
catalog number
1978.0067.59
accession number
1978.0067

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