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Harvard Collection Of Historical Scientific Instruments
Harvard University's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments (CHSI), established 1948, is "one of the three largest university collections of its kind in the world". Waywiser, the online catalog of the collection, lists over 60% of the collection's 20,000 objects . The collection was originally curated by Mr. David P Wheatland in his office to prevent obsolete equipment from being cannibalized for its component parts and materials. A selection of instruments and artifacts from the collection is on permanent display in the Putnam Gallery on the first floor of the Harvard Science Center, which is free and open to the public on weekdays. In addition, rotating temporary exhibitions drawn from the collection are shown in the Special Exhibitions Gallery on the second floor, and a more modest Foyer Gallery space on the third floor. The CHSI includes a number of scientific instruments and demonstration apparatus purchased circa 1765 under the advice of Benjamin Franklin, to repl ...
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Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and one of the most prestigious and highly ranked universities in the world. The university is composed of ten academic faculties plus Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines, and other faculties offer only graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three main campuses: the Cambridge campus centered on Harvard Yard; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Harvard's endowment is valued at $50.9 billion, making it the wealthiest academic institution in the world. Endow ...
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Cannibalization (parts)
Cannibalization of machine parts, in the maintenance of mechanical or electronic systems with interchangeable parts, refers to the practice of removing parts or subsystems necessary for repair from another similar device, rather than from inventory, usually when resources become limited. The source system is usually crippled as a result, perhaps only temporarily, in order to allow the recipient device to function properly again. Cannibalization usually occurs due to unavailability of spare parts, an emergency, long resupply times, physical distance, or insufficient planning/budget. Cannibalization can also be due to reusing surplus inventory. At the end of World War II a large quantity of high quality, but unusable war surplus equipment such as radar devices made a ready source of parts to build radio equipment. Cannibalization can also be an economic/ecological choice for end of life products. Germany, rather than sell/export functional used cars, will disassemble and store par ...
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Harvard Science Center
The Harvard University Science Center is Harvard's main classroom and laboratory building for undergraduate science and mathematics, in addition to housing numerous other facilities and services. Located just north of Harvard Yard, the Science Center was built in 1972 and opened in 1973 after a design by Josep Lluís Sert (then dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design). History Planning Harvard had been interested in building an undergraduate science center in the 1950s and 1960s. However, in the midst of an economic decline, funding could not be found. No concrete plans were made until in 1968, Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid "Land" camera, made a $12.5 million donation to construct a science center specifically for undergraduates. Opponents of the plan feared that insufficient monies would be found to complete the project, and that the building's maintenance costs would be unreasonably high. The Biology Department also protested the move of its undergraduate- ...
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Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a drafter and signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, and the first United States Postmaster General. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his studies of electricity, and for charting and naming the current still known as the Gulf Stream. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among others. He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia's first fire department, and the University of Pennsylvania. Isaacson, 2004, p. Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefa ...
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Harvard Hall
Harvard Hall is a Harvard University classroom building in Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts. First Harvard Hall The present Harvard Hall replaces an earlier structure of the same name on the same site. The first Harvard Hall was built between 1674 and 1677. It was Harvard College's first brick building and replaced a decaying wooden building located a few hundred feet to the southeast. Samuel Andrew, a local Cambridge merchant and shipwright was the master builder. Present Building The original Harvard Hall burned on January 24, 1764, destroying 4,500 of the College Library's 5,000 books as well as its collection of "philosophical apparatus" (scientific instruments). The Massachusetts General Court, which had been meeting in Harvard Hall to escape a smallpox epidemic in Boston, took responsibility for the fire and funded reconstruction. Thanks to generous donors such as Thomas Hollis V and John Hancock, within two years the new Harvard Hall housed a library larger than ...
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Harvard Mark I
The Harvard Mark I, or IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), was a general-purpose electromechanical computer used in the war effort during the last part of World War II. One of the first programs to run on the Mark I was initiated on 29 March 1944 by John von Neumann. At that time, von Neumann was working on the Manhattan Project, and needed to determine whether implosion was a viable choice to detonate the atomic bomb that would be used a year later. The Mark I also computed and printed mathematical tables, which had been the initial goal of British inventor Charles Babbage for his "analytical engine" in 1837. The Mark I was disassembled in 1959, but portions of it were displayed in the Science Center as part of the Harvard Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments until being moved to the new Science and Engineering Complex in Allston, Massachusetts in July 2021. Other sections of the original machine had much earlier been transferred to IBM and the ...
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Electromechanical Computer
A mechanical computer is a computer built from mechanical components such as levers and gears rather than electronic components. The most common examples are adding machines and mechanical counters, which use the turning of gears to increment output displays. More complex examples could carry out multiplication and division—Friden used a moving head which paused at each column—and even differential analysis. One model, the Ascota 170 accounting machine sold in the 1960s calculated square roots. Mechanical computers can be either analog, using smooth mechanisms such as curved plates or slide rules for computations; or digital, which use gears. Mechanical computers reached their zenith during World War II, when they formed the basis of complex bombsights including the Norden, as well as the similar devices for ship computations such as the US Torpedo Data Computer or British Admiralty Fire Control Table. Noteworthy are mechanical flight instruments for early spacecraft, whi ...
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Harvard John A
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and one of the most prestigious and highly ranked universities in the world. The university is composed of ten academic faculties plus Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines, and other faculties offer only graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three main campuses: the Cambridge campus centered on Harvard Yard; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Harvard's endowment is valued at $50.9 billion, making it the wealthiest academic institution in the world. Endowment inco ...
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Harvard Library
Harvard Library is the umbrella organization for Harvard University's libraries and services. It is the oldest library system in the United States and both the largest academic library and largest private library in the world. Its collection hold over 20 million volumes, 400 million manuscripts, 10 million photographs, and one million maps. Harvard Library holds the third largest collection of all libraries in the nation after the Library of Congress and Boston Public Library. Based on the number of items held, it is the fifth largest library in the United States. Harvard Library is a member of the Research Collections and Preservation Consortium (ReCAP); other members include Columbia University Libraries, Princeton University Library, New York Public Library, and Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation, making over 90 million books available to the library's users.    The library is open to current Harvard affiliates, and some events and spaces are open to the public. The larg ...
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American Alliance Of Museums
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * ...
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Harvard University Museums
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and one of the most prestigious and highly ranked universities in the world. The university is composed of ten academic faculties plus Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines, and other faculties offer only graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three main campuses: the Cambridge campus centered on Harvard Yard; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Harvard's endowment is valued at $50.9 billion, making it the wealthiest academic institution in the world. Endowment inc ...
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Scientific Instruments
A scientific instrument is a device or tool used for scientific purposes, including the study of both natural phenomena and theoretical research. History Historically, the definition of a scientific instrument has varied, based on usage, laws, and historical time period. Before the mid-nineteentcenturysuch tools were referred to as "natural philosophical" or "philosophical" apparatus and instruments, and older tools from antiquity to the Middle Ages (such as the astrolabe and pendulum clock) defy a more modern definition of "a tool developed to investigate nature qualitatively or quantitatively." Scientific instruments were made by instrument makers living near a center of learning or research, such as a university or research laboratory. Instrument makers designed, constructed, and refined instruments for purposes, but if demand was sufficient, an instrument would go into production as a commercial product. In a description of the use of the eudiometer by Jan Ingenhousz to show ...
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