Built in 1985, this robot was a prototype designed as a sentry at Sandia National Laboratories. Capable of operating by remote control or autonomously, the Sandia Interior Robot (SIR) was the only robot of its day able to navigate a building without a predetermined pathway or electric floor guides. It emerged from a program started ten years earlier to develop technologies for detecting interior intrusions for the Department of Energy’s nuclear safeguards efforts. SIR was the first of a fleet of vehicles Sandia researchers built as test beds for applying robotics to interior and exterior security.
SIR is a mobile platform with three wheels. At the time of its donation to the Smithsonian it carried a sonar (ultrasonic) sensor array—a circular arrangement of 30 Polaroid transceivers—and a Pulnix video camera for optical sensing. These sensors allow the robot to locate walls and other obstacles. It also carried, at various times, a magnetic compass to provide azimuth information, an odometer to record distance traveled and a steering motor for adjusting wheels for navigation.
Although SIR has its own on-board computer (a 6805 microprocessor in 1987), it was originally designed to communicate through a modem with a remote host computer (an IBM-compatible PC with 512KB RAM in 1987). Researchers at Sandia mainly used the robot to test new algorithms for room mapping, navigation and path following. They also used it to test other interior sensing and security systems.
SIR’s chief builders were J. J. Harrington and P. R. Klarer.
This object is an original pen and ink political cartoon hand drawn by Clifford Berryman on white paper circa 1912 in Washington, D.C. The title, possibly not finalized, reads "Frightful Figuring for Old Figgers" and is inscribed as well as crossed out in pencil. The drawing depicts Charles Henry Grosvenor (Republican Congressman from Ohio) busily tallying numeric scores for William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M. La Follette (Sr.) of Wisconsin, and Albert B. Cummins of Iowa. He says to himself: "Figgerin' isn't what it used to be!" Various numbers appear in the background. He is surrounded by books he may have authored (real or perhaps imaginary for the purpose of this illustration) with titles such as "Grosvenor on Election Statistics," Grosvenor's Political Mathematics," and "Old Figgers or How I Calculate." Berryman's number 2235[5?] is stamped twice in blue ink in the lower right corner. The drawing is signed "Berryman" in the lower right area of the illustration.
Grosvenor had a lengthy and varied career in American politics. He worked as the statistician for the Republican Party because of his interest in numeric political calculations and became nicknamed "Old Figgers." He supported Taft but his arithmetic showed Roosevelt was in the lead - hence, the title "Frightful Figuring for 'Old Figgers.'"
One eyepiece barrel is marked “Docteur / Arthur Chevalier” and the other “Paris / 158 Palais Royal.” The objective lenses are 30 mm diameter. The frame is black metal. The barrels are covered with black leather. A center wheel adjusts the focus.
Arthur Chevalier (1830-1874) began in business around 1860, taking charge of the optical firm begun by his grandfather, Charles Chevalier, and continued by his father, Louis Vincent Chevalier. M. Avizard bought the firm in 1881.
Ref: Arthur Chevalier, Catalogue Explicatif et Illustré des Instruments d’Optique et de Météorologie (Paris, 1860), pp. 16-20.
Paolo Brenni, “19th Century French Scientific Instrument Makers. II: The Chevalier Dynasty,” Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society 39 (1993): 11–14.
This engraving depicts the orrery that Thomas Wright made in 1730 for Mr. Watts’ Academy in Tower Street, London. The surrounding diagrams represent the Ptolemaic system, the Tychonic system, the Copernican system, and the orbits of Mercury and Venus around the Sun. The text at top reads: “The Theory of the HEAVENS & the Earth explain’d according to the several Systems.” The text at bottom reads: “Engrav’d for the Universal Magazine 1749 for J. Hinton at the Kings Arms in St Pauls Church-Yard LONDON”
Ref: “The History of All Nations,” Universal Magazine 4 (1749): 49-58.
This engraving is from the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers organized by Denis Diderot and other philosophes. It was published in the “Chimie” section of vol. 3 of the Recueil de Planches, sur les sciences, les arts libéraux, et les arts méchaniques (Paris, 1763).
This is the third of the series of plates representing furnaces and other chemical apparatus. The figures run from 22 to 38. The large figure at top represents the furnace as arranged by the German metallurgist Johann Andreas Cramer. The tall figure at the lower right represents the furnace used by the Prussian chemist Johann Heinrich Pott.
“Pl. III” appears at the upper right. The “Goussier del.” signature at the bottom left refers to Jacques-Louis Goussier, the artist who drew more than 900 plates for the Encyclopédie. The “Desehrt fecit” signature at lower right refers to a French engraver of the period.
A retort is a vessel used for distillation, usually of less volatile liquids. During the eighteenth century it, like many other types of laboratory ware, became standardized. Often made of glass, the vessel is spherical or sometimes tear-shaped, with a long downward pointing neck. The distillate condenses at the top of the neck and flows down to be collected in a receiver, usually a short-necked round-bottomed flask.
This distillation flask was made by Schott & Genossen. The distilling flask, also known as a fractional distillation flask or fractioning flask, is a vessel with a round bottom and a long neck from which a side arm protrudes. It is primarily used for distillation, the process of separating a mixture of liquids with different boiling points through evaporation and condensation. Liquids with lower boiling points vaporize first and then rise through the neck and into the side arm, where they recondense and collect in a separate container.
In this way, the distillation flask serves a similar purpose to the retort. It offers certain advantages over the retort, however, because its vertical neck makes it easier to add liquids. The neck also allows a thermometer to be inserted, if desired, to record boiling temperatures. The placement of the side arm along the neck varies depending on the characteristics of the solution to be distilled. The higher the boiling point of a substance, the lower the side arm should be on the neck, giving vapors a shorter distance to rise and less chance to recondense before reaching the side arm.
Glastechnisches Laboratorium Schott und Genossen (Glass Technology Laboratory, Schott & Associates), later the Jenaer Glasswerk Schott & Gen. (Jena Glassworks, Schott & Associates), was founded in 1884 by Otto Schott (1851–1935), Ernst Abbe (1840–1905), Carl Zeiss (1816–1888), and Zeiss' son Roderick.
In 1881 Schott, a chemist from a family of glassmakers, and Abbe, a physicist with an interest in optics, formed a research partnership. Together they hoped to perfect a chemical glass formula for lenses in optical instruments like microscopes and telescopes. Their original goal was to develop glasses of high quality and purity with consistent optical properties. As their research expanded, they eventually developed the first borosilicate glasses. Their strength against chemical attack and low coefficient of thermal expansion made them better suited to the harsh circumstances of the chemical laboratory than any other glass.
Jena Glass quickly became a success among the scientific community, widely considered the best on the market until World War I.
This object was used at the Chemistry department at the University of Pennsylvania. Chemistry has been taught at the University since at least 1769 when doctor and signer of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush (1746–1813), became Professor of Chemistry in the Medical School. A Chemistry department independent of the Medical School was established by 1874.
Sources:
“A Brief History of the Department of Chemistry at Penn.” University of Pennsylvania Department of Chemistry. Accessed March 20, 2015. https://www.chem.upenn.edu/content/penn-chemistry-history.
Baker, Ray Stannard. Seen in Germany. Chautauqua, N. Y.: 1908. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433043165608.
Cauwood, J.D., and W.E.S. Turner. “The Attack of Chemical Reagents on Glass Surfaces, and a Comparison of Different Types of Chemical Glassware.” Journal of the Society of Glass Technology 1 (1917): 153–62.
Findlay, Alexander. Practical Physical Chemistry. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1917. https://archive.org/details/cu31924031196615.
Gatterman, Ludwig. Practical Methods of Organic Chemistry. New York: The Macmillian Company, 1901. https://archive.org/details/practicalmethods00gatt.
Hovestadt, Heinrich. Jena Glass and Its Scientific and Industrial Applications. London, New York: Macmillan, 1902.
Pfaender, H. G. Schott Guide to Glass. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.
Walker, Percy H. Comparative Tests of Chemical Glassware. Washington, D.C.: 1918. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015086545707.
Replica of the apparatus that the American chemist Robert Hare (1781–1858) designed for demonstrating the decomposition and recomposition of water to his large classes in the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania. An inscription reads "L. C. Eichner fecit, MCMLX." This was made in anticipation of the opening of the National Museum of History and Technology in 1964.
Ref: Robert Hare, A Compendium of the Course of Chemical Instruction (Philadelphia, 1836), 3d ed., pp. 196-197.
Robert Hare, “Engraving and Description of an Apparatus for the Decomposition and Recomposition of Water, Employed in the Laboratory of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 6 (1839): 339-340.