Science & Mathematics - Overview
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.
"Science & Mathematics - Overview" showing 1385 items.
Page 1 of 139
Beckman DU Spectrophotometer
- Description
- The Beckman DU spectrophotometer is perhaps the greatest single instrument of the postwar period. The original design dates from 1941, but the machine really became "the universal spectrophotometer" in the science boom after World War II. More accurate than the Universal or the Spectronic 20, it produces accurate absorption spectra in both the ultraviolet and the visible regions of the spectrum with relative ease and repeatable accuracy. Although attempts were made to automate its scan and add recording features, it remained a point-by-point instrument that, although no longer made, still finds applications in today's laboratory.
- The instrument is housed in a black steel case with a wrinkle finish.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1981.0535.06
- catalog number
- 1981.535.06
- accession number
- 1981.0535
- serial number
- 42175
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Watson and Crick Metal Base Pair from Model
- Description
- This is one of four brass templates illustrating the base pairings of adenine and thymine or cytosine and guanine, from Francis Crick's and James Watson's original model of the "double helix" of DNA. Two templates show the correct base pair shapes; two others are earlier, misconceived models. Watson and Crick's story of discovery is well told in James Watson's The Double Helix, including the moment they put together the first correct model. A key clue for matching the correct forms of adenine and thymine or guanine and cytosine came from American crystallographer Jerry Donohue, who worked in the same laboratory as Watson and Crick. After the double helix research was published in Nature, generating tremendous worldwide notoriety, Donohue kept the model templates as souvenirs. Later, he returned to the United States, taking a position at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Shortly before his death, Donohue gave the templates to his friend and fellow crystallographer, Dr. Helen Berman, who presented them to the Smithsonian in 1988.
- Location
- Currently on loan
- Date made
- 1953
- originator
- Crick, Francis
- Watson, James
- maker
- Cavendish Laboratory
- ID Number
- 1988.0494.01
- accession number
- 1988.0494
- catalog number
- 1988.0494.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Porter Garden Telescope
- Description
- A skillful blending of art and science, the Porter Garden Telescope is a 6-inch f/4 Newtonian reflector cast in solid statuary bronze that can also serve as a sundial and as an elegant piece of domestic garden furniture. The slender blade of overlapping leaves holds the primary mirror, the prism, and the eyepiece in alignment. A bowl of lotus leaves embraces the mirror and a pair of cylindrical flowers forms the slow motion controls. The base is embellished with the names of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton. When not in use, the optical elements could be removed and taken indoors.
- Russell Porter, an Arctic explorer and Boston architect, designed the Garden Telescope. John A. Brashear provided the eyepieces and prisms. Wilbur Perry, an early member of Stellafane, figured the mirrors.
- This example is marked "The Porter Garden Telescope built and sold by Jones & Lamson Machine Co. Springfield Vermont. -U-S-A-/No. 49/US Patent 1468973 Sept. 25, 1923." Christian La Roche acquired it in the early 1930s and gave it to the Smithsonian in 1992.
- The Garden Telescope has a split-ring equatorial mount. Porter developed this design in 1918 and later proposed it for the large telescope on Mt. Palomar. John Pierce, a member of the Springfield Telescope Makers, suggested "that the 200-inch mount as constructed is simply a glorified 'Garden Telescope,' with a lattice tube instead of the bar which supports the prism and ocular in the garden telescope."
- We suspect that fewer than 100 Garden Telescopes were ever made. This commercial failure can be partially attributed to cost. With a price tag ranging from $400 to $500, it was beyond the means of most potential buyers.
- Ref: John Tracy Spaight, "The Porter Garden Telescope," Rittenhouse 6 (1992): 97-102.
- Location
- Currently on loan
- date made
- after 1923-09-25
- maker
- Jones & Lamson Machine Co.
- Brashear, John A.
- ID Number
- 1992.0242.01
- catalog number
- 1991.0242.01
- accession number
- 1991.0242
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Einstein's Brier Pipe
- Description
- Albert Einstein, creator of the theory of relativity, Nobel Prize winner, and striver for world peace, is almost as well known for his physical appearance as for his epochal work in theoretical physics. Characteristic of that appearance was a pipe. Although in his later years he restricted his smoking on doctors' orders, he couldn't bear to give up the tactile experience of a pipe itself. This one, in fact, gives evidence of Einstein's long usage in a hole he wore through its bit. He was still in the habit of holding it when in 1953 he gave it to a friend and admirer, Gina Plunguian, from whom it ultimately came to the Museum. It has become the most popular object in the Modern Physics collection.
- Date made
- before 1948
- owner
- Einstein, Albert
- referenced
- Plunguian, Gina
- user
- Einstein, Albert
- ID Number
- 1996.0006.01
- accession number
- 1996.0006
- catalog number
- 1996.0006.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Matrass Flask
- Description
- This flask, made of green glass, is properly called a "matrass." Part of a distillation apparatus, a matrass is a vessel with a round bottom and a long slender neck. It is used with a head and a receiver, the two other pieces needed for the distillation process. Joseph Priestley used this 18th-century matrass in his Northumberland, Pa., laboratory.
- Priestley, the noted chemist whose accomplishments include the discovery of oxygen, was born in England. He lived and worked in Birmingham for many years, but his views as a Dissenter and an advocate of the French Revolution incited an angry mob into burning down his house and laboratory. In 1794 he fled to America, eventually settling in Northumberland, near Philadelphia. His great-great-granddaughter, Frances Priestley, donated his surviving laboratory ware to the Smithsonian in 1883.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 18th century
- used by
- Priestley, Joseph
- ID Number
- CH*315355.19
- accession number
- 13305
- catalog number
- 315355.19
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Ferrel Tide Predictor
- Description
- In 1872, the British physicist William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) devised a machine to simulate mechanically the combination of periodic motions that produce tides. Inspired by this example, William Ferrel of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey designed a tide predictor and had it built by the Washington, D.C., firm of Fauth and Company. This elegant machine was more compact than that of Thomson, and gave maxima and minima rather than a continuous curve as output. It was designed in 1880, went into service in 1883 and remained in use until 1910. The success of Ferrel's tide predictor suggested the feasibility of replacing calculations performed by people with computation by machines.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1882
- used during
- 1883-1910
- maker
- Fauth & Co.
- designer
- Ferrel, William
- ID Number
- MA*315917
- catalog number
- 315917
- accession number
- 223203
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Hartman's Planispheric Astrolabe
- Description
- The astrolabe is an astronomical calculating device used from ancient times into the eighteenth century. Measuring the height of a star using the back of the instrument, and knowing the latitude, one could find the time of night and the position of other stars. The openwork piece on the front, called the rete, is a star map of the northern sky. Pointers on the rete correspond to stars; the outermost circle is the Tropic of Capricorn, and the circle that is off-center represents the zodiac, the apparent annual motion of the sun. Engraved plates that fit below the rete have scales of altitude and azimuth (arc of the horizon) for specific latitudes. This brass astrolabe has four plates; one may well be a replacement. It was made in Nuremberg by Georg Hartman in 1537. An inscription on the inside of the instrument states that it once belonged to the Italian mathematician and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1537
- owner
- Galilei, Galileo
- maker
- Hartman, Georg
- ID Number
- MA*336117
- catalog number
- 336117
- accession number
- 215454
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
E. Howard and Company Astronomical Regulator
- Description
- Most nineteenth century American clocks were cheaply made for the mass market and domestic use. But a few firms made finely finished precision clocks for applications where accuracy was vital: determining the time of scientific observations, for example, or regulating other clocks and watches. One such firm was E. Howard and Company of Boston, specialists in quality clocks, watches, and scales since 1842.
- Howard's 1860 catalog featured this clock. It was advertised as an "astronomical clock" available in various styles, sizes, and prices, and recommended for observatories, watchmakers' shops, and railroad depots. Such a clock is today called a regulator, a particularly accurate timepiece designed exclusively for keeping time. Nonessential complications like striking mechanisms, calendar work, and moon dials are omitted. The case is likewise unadorned. This particular clock has a sixteen-inch silvered dial that indicates hours, minutes, and seconds separately. The steel pendulum rod carries two glass jars filled with mercury. The expansion and contraction of the mercury compensates for changes in the rod's length as the room temperature rises and falls.
- About 1855, E. Howard and Company sold this clock to James Allan and Company, a Charleston, South Carolina, jewelry firm whose name is engraved on the dial. The regulator stood in the same Allan family store (called Charles Kerrison Company after 1960) from 1865 until it came to the Smithsonian in 1977, except for one brief period. On August 31, 1886, the regulator fell over when an earthquake rocked Charleston, and it briefly returned to the Howard factory for repairs.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1855-1859
- manufacturer
- E. Howard & Co.
- ID Number
- ME*335723
- catalog number
- 335723
- accession number
- 1977.0507
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Rutherfurd Diffraction Grating
- Description
- Lewis M. Rutherfurd (1816-1892) was an independent astronomer in New York City who began making diffraction gratings around 1871 and distributing them freely to astronomers and physicists in the United States and abroad. By 1875 he was producing gratings with 17,280 lines per inch. This example is a steel plate measuring 1.75 inches square overall, with the ruled area occupying the central 1 inch square. The plate is marked "Dec. 22, 1877" and a card in the box is marked "17,280 No. 1".
- Ref. D. J. Warner, "Lewis M. Rutherfurd: Pioneer Astronomical Photographer and Spectroscopist," Technology and Culture 12 (1971): 190-216.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1877
- maker
- Rutherfurd, Lewis Morris
- ID Number
- PH*314901
- accession number
- 212171
- catalog number
- 314901
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Rowland Diffraction Grating
- Description
- Henry A. Rowland, a professor of physics at The Johns Hopkins University, designed an engine that produced diffraction gratings by ruling a large number of closely spaced lines on a metal surface. The concave speculum metal mirrors for many of these gratings were ground and polished in John A. Brashear's shop in Pittsburgh. The mirrors were sent to Baltimore, where Theodore C. Schneider ruled them with Rowland's engine, and then returned to Pittsburgh for sale to scientists around the world. This one is marked “Ruled by Schneider on Rowland's engine 14438 lines per inch Johns Hopkins Univ. Feb 1884 definition good. Ruling third class.”
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1884
- maker
- Rowland, Henry A.
- ID Number
- PH*315760
- accession number
- 217544
- catalog number
- 315760
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center