This is one of four string models showing space curves of fourth order that were designed by the German mathematician Hermann Wiener (1857-1939) and first published by Ludwig Brill in 1884. The model has a metal frame painted black. There are no curves on the top and two pieces of metal along opposite sides of the bottom. Six curved metal segments come together at the center of two opposite sides. The other two sides have identical curved figures. The bits of string left on the model (most strings are missing) are red and gold. Several wires held in the frame have beads on them. This example has no maker's label.
The model is intended to show the developable surface of the tangents to the curves shown in Brill's model 91 (e.g. model 1985.0112.065).
This example of the model was exhibited at the Columbian Exposition, a World’s Fair held in Chicago in 1893. It came to the Smithsonian from Wesleyan University in 1985.
Examples of this model, with strings, are presently shown at websites of the University of Illinois (the Altgeld collection) and of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
References:
L. Brill, Catalog mathematischer Modelle..., Darmstadt: L. Brill, 1892, p. 24, 74.
For images of the example of the model at the University of Illinois, see http://www.mathmodels.illinois.edu/cgi-bin/cview?SITEID=4&ID=358, accessed August 19, 2020.
For the example of the model at the University of Groningen, see Series XII, nr. 2 at http://www.math.rug.nl/models/, accessed August 19, 2020.
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