Wave Demonstration Device

Description:

This is probably a “Wave Machine after Fessel and Plucker . . . with two adjustable wave troughs and two sets of pins with balls on the ends for demonstrating transverse, Circular and elliptic wave motion.” It came from the Case Institute of Technology. The “MAX KOHL, A.G. / Fabrik physicalischer Apparate / CHEMNITZ i. Sa.” brass tag on the wooden box suggests that it was made after 1908.

Friedrich Fessel (1821-ca. 1860), a craftsman in Cologne, devised a version of Wheatstone’s wave demonstration device. Julius Plucker (1801-1868), a mathematician and physicist in Bonn, published an account of Fessel’s instrument in 1849.

Ref: Julius Plucker, in Poggendorff Annalen 78 (1849): 421.

Max Kohl A.G, Education and Laboratory Furniture for Physics, Chemistry and Biology Class Rooms and Laboratories (Chemnitz, [1928]), p. 351.

Maker: Max Kohl

Location: Currently not on view

Place Made: Germany: Saxony, Chemnitz

See more items in: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences

Exhibition:

Exhibition Location:

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Id Number: PH.326478Catalog Number: 326478Accession Number: 251332

Object Name: wave demonstrator

Measurements: overall: 13 in x 29 3/4 in x 11 1/8 in; 33.02 cm x 75.565 cm x 28.2575 cm

Guid: http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746b2-d82c-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa

Record Id: nmah_1817042

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