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 835 items.
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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
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. Designed in 1880, it 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
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
Rowland Diffraction Grating
- Description
- This concave metal grating probably belonged to Samuel Pierpont Langley, director of the Allegheny Observatory and professor of astronomy at the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh). It probably came to Washington in 1887 when Langley became the third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
- It is marked "plate polished and corrected by J. A. Brashear Pittsburgh, Mar. 1886 Radius 64 Ruled by Schneider on Rowland engine Johns Hopkins University April 1886 - lines to in temp-".
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1886
- maker
- Rowland, Henry A.
- Brashear, John A.
- ID Number
- PH*316718
- catalog number
- 316718
- accession number
- 227592
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Rowland Diffraction Grating
- Description
- This is one of the earliest concave metal gratings made on the ruling engine devised by Henry A. Rowland, professor of physics at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. According to Rowland, it "was made for Professor Langley's experiments on the ultra-red portion of the spectrum, and was thus made very bright in the first spectrum. The definition seems to be very fine, notwithstanding the short focus and divides the 1474 line with ease." The reference here is to Samuel Pierpont Langley, the director of the Allegheny Observatory and professor of astronomy at the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh). Langley became the third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1887. The grating measures 4 inches x 4.5 inches, and is marked "Rowland's concave grating Baltimore, May 12, 1882. 3610 lines to inch, radius 64".
- Ref: Henry A. Rowland, "Preliminary Notice of the Results accomplished in the Manufacture and Theory of Gratings for Optical Purposes," Philosophical Magazine 13 (1882): 469-474.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1882
- maker
- Rowland, Henry A.
- ID Number
- PH*316865
- catalog number
- 316865
- accession number
- 228767
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Rowland Solar Spectrum
- Description
- Henry A. Rowland, the first professor of physics at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., produced a photographic map of the solar spectrum using concave diffraction gratings made with his own ruling engine. The first edition, published in 1886, covered the region from wave-length 3100 to 5790. The scale of these maps was much greater than the maps of Angstrom or Rutherfurd, and they showed many more spectral lines. This set has five of the original seven plates. It came from Columbia University.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1886
- maker
- Rowland, Henry A.
- ID Number
- PH*322957
- catalog number
- 322957
- accession number
- 249200
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Rutherfurd Diffraction Grating
- Description
- Charles A. Young, professor of astronomy at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), acquired this diffraction grating in 1877. The speculum metal plate measures 2⅞ inches square, with the grating measuring almost 12 inches square. It is marked "Aug. 24, 1877; 5,760 per inch; 11,280 spaces, D. C. Chapman; 175, 2 Ave. N. Y." Daniel C. Chapman was the mechanic who operated the ruling engine designed and built by Lewis M. Rutherfurd.
- 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*328884
- accession number
- 277637
- catalog number
- 328884
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Rutherfurd Diffraction Grating
- Description
- Charles A. Young, the professor of astronomy at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), acquired this diffraction grating in 1878. The speculum metal plate measures 3 inches square overall, with the grating measuring 1.75 inch square. It is marked: "May 28, 1878" and "16,560 spaces" and "8648 per inch" and "Manf. by D. C. Chapman with Mr. Rutherfurd's Engine." Daniel C. Chapman was the mechanic who operated the ruling engine designed by Lewis M. Rutherfurd.
- 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
- 1878
- maker
- Rutherfurd, Lewis Morris
- ID Number
- PH*330707
- accession number
- 299612
- catalog number
- 330707
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center