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 30 items.
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Moon Globe by Reploge Globes, Inc., about 1969
- 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 on the globe. 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." Finally, 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 booklet 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
- catalog number
- 90.15.2
- accession number
- 1990.0015
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Microscope and Lab Set
- Description
- Toy maker A. C. Gilbert, famous for its erector sets and chemical apparatus, introduced a new line of science toys in early 1957. The colorful metal case of this microscope and lab set proclaims that "today's adventures in science will create tomorrow's America."
- Test tubes on the left side of the interior contain Oregon balsam, denatured alcohol, thionine, phenolphthalein, diatomaceous earth, safranin stain, and a fly. There also is a compound monocular microscope with revolving three turret objectives, adjustable table, adjustable mirror, and focusing knob.
- Further apparatus includes a plastic dish, a polarizing filter, a dropper, a dissecting needle, a glass rod, forceps, two glass slides, a box of cover glasses, a box of red litmus paper, and a box of fish scales. The donor, Sherrie Lyn Hall, received the set for Christmas in 1957.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1992.0560.01.2
- catalog number
- 1992.0560.01.2
- accession number
- 1992.0560
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Biology Laboratory Manual
- 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.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1963
- ID Number
- 1993.0287.01
- catalog number
- 1993.0287.01
- accession number
- 1993.0287
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Periodic Chart of the Atoms
- 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 the first edition of this "Periodic Chart of the Atoms." It 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
- 1994.019.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Space-Filling Molecular Models
- 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
- 1994.019.35
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mohr Measuring Pipette
- 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
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mohr Measuring Pipette
- 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
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Spitz Junior Planetarium
- Description
- This small planetarium was introduced in 1954, as Americans were becoming increasingly interested in outer space, rockets, and astronomy. It was designed by Armand Spitz, a Philadelphia businessman who had designed and begun making the first American public planetaria, and Thomas Liversidge, proprietor of Harmonic Reed, a musical toy instrument company. The first advertisements for the Spitz Junior appeared in early 1954 and the instrument was manufactured until about 1972. Altogether, over a million were produced.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1954-1972
- ID Number
- 2000.0129.01
- catalog number
- 2000.0129.01
- accession number
- 2000.0129
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
The First Atomic-Beam Clock
- 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
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Projector by J. Duboscq
- Description
- This instrument, similar to an "overhead projector," was used to project the image of objects placed on it. A separate light source was placed at the bottom of the instrument, aimed at the angled mirror, which directed the light through the object being viewed. The first model of this instrument was made by J. Duboscq in Paris in 1866. This model, a much modified version of the original, was introduced in 1876. This type of instrument is widely used today in educational institutions, where it is known as a viewgraph.
- Reference: Journal de Physique Theorique et Appliquee, Vol. 1, 1872, p. 372; Vol. 5, 1876, pp. 216-218. See also: Debbie Griggs, "Projection Apparatus for Science in Late Nineteenth Century America," Rittenhouse, Vol.7, No. 1 (Nov 1992).
- The object was transfered from the U.S. Military Academy in 1958.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- after 1876
- maker
- Duboscq, Jules
- ID Number
- PH*315416
- catalog number
- 315416
- accession number
- 217544
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center