Mathematics
On Display
Set of 7 assembled cardboard geometrical models on wooden stands showing the surfaces of the second order.
Set of Napier's bones in boxwood, in a boxwood case. John Napier (1550-1617), discoverer of logarithms, also created this popular calculating tool known as Napier's cylindrical 'rods' or 'bones'. Napier's bones reduced muliplication to a sequence of
Gem' calculating machine, J.Guthrie's patent No 15062, 1890. The GEM calculator is a simple device for the addition of English money. Numbers are added by inserting a stylus against the figure and pulling downward.
Brical' adding machine in case with two bone styluses. Patented by H and M Dickinson, the 'Brical' was Britain's answer to the French circular 'Tronset' instrument and is a modification of it. It was designed to add sums of money from 1/2d to £500.
Farey's ellipsograph dated 1817 in mahogany case. An ellipsograph is used to draw ellipses, which consist of a combination of two circular motions. The drawing pencil is fixed in position in a central ring, which then revolves. At the same time, the
Harmonographs demonstrate the action of two pendulums acting at the same time at right angles to each other.
Plaster model of the surface z = 3a(x2 - y2) - (x3 + y3). Alexander Crum Brown was both a mathematician and chemist. He was a prolific maker of mathematical models. In this example, every section made by a plane passing through the blue line forms an
Model of a half-twist surface. Alexander Crum Brown (1838-1922), who was professor of mathematics at Edinburgh, was a prolific maker of mathematical models. This one is related to the Klein bottle and Mobius strip.
A circular engineer's slide rule made by Apps, c.1870. A circular slide rule affords a long and therefore accurate logarithmic line in a small amount of space. The potential of circular rules was not really utilized until the Victorian period, when s
An early example of the Comptometer, with 72 numbered keys. The top of box has a plate engraved with varoius patents up to 1891. The Felt and Tarrant Comptometer was one of the first generation of mass-produced office calculators. It was extremely su