Discoveries in the Physics & Astronomy shop | Science, curiosities, and surprises
Sometimes you could really use a book that covers the physics behind musical instruments. We’ve all been there, right?
And who can resist grabbing a title off the shelf – Vibration and Sound by Philip M. Morse, of course – that looks like it’s been resting patiently for quite some time? Last pre-digital checkout, May 20th, 2004; prior to that, April 28th, 1997.
First one marked: April 12th, 1950. The 2004 event was the 15th time the book was checked out. Does that make us the sweet sixteen?
Wow. Just, wow.
In our Physics & Astronomy labs, we use metersticks with great frequency. Often for measurements, sometimes to approximate distances that make the arithmetic easier, and occasionally as a handy tool for pointing to the projector screen.
They aren’t super-high precision any more than the rulers you remember from elementary school, and for that we have other tools. Sometimes, as you can see above, the years have warped and twisted things a bit. We adjust.
As you might expect, they offer metric distances on one side, inches and feet on the other. The best ones – the oldest set – were long ago painted black to conceal those SAE units. Clearly, someone grew weary of students measuring everything in inches and then complaining that the math wasn’t working out right.
Red lighting is so useful for being able to find things at night without ruining your dark-adapted vision. Key to visual astronomy.
Also, we now understand, for parties. Like, more than just star parties.
We’ve pointed out our old and reliable force tables before – classics of the undergraduate physics experience – which arrived here in several installments. Previously, 1957. This young’un only appeared in April of 1964, intended for the Physics 107-8 lab. Not listed in any recent course catalog, we’re uncertain of exactly what that was.
We could probably go pester some librarians, because surely there’s a record, but those folks are awfully busy on more important matters. Leave the idle wondering to the fellows here in the basement.
At any rate, they paid a healthy sum of $96.75 for this precision-machined beast. In today’s dollars: $985.65.
Do you think we’ve gotten our money’s worth yet?
First class postage as of January 27th, 1956 cost three cents.
At one point in time, the slide rule was an essential tool in a physics/math/engineering education. Built and etched with high precision, they enable a skilled user to perform all sorts of mathematical operations with speed and ease. It’s the power of logarithms in a hand-held device.
Which, if you’re the sort of person who can master a slide rule, means you can also fully grasp the particulars of how one works.
It’s a smidge harder to get there with an everyday calculator. The gulf between the solid-state electronics inside one and the button-pressing interface is enormous.
At one point in time, this beast was a handy demonstration device at the front of the lecture hall. Visible from way in the back, it lets an instructor illustrate proper slide rule use to an entire class at once.
Not that that happens much anymore, but this thing is awesome. If you found one back in the closet, you’d keep it handy, too.
Why, yes, astute observer: that is a can, formerly home to Maxwell House BOLD French Roast coffee, now filled to the brim with #2-64 fine thread, slotted-head screws. No, it was not labeled.
A substantial quantity of an infrequently-used fastener around here. One can infer that we have spares enough to last quite some time.
“Connerctor!”
For one lab, run once each academic year, we need about a half teaspoon’s worth of tiny polystyrene pellets, the kind that get pressed together to make the cheapest, crappiest, least environmentally friendly coffee cups around. Altogether, in a busy lab year, that’s still maybe a third of a cup. And we can recover some of them, because we filter everything before pouring the liquid down the drain.
And we’ve got enough of them sitting in storage to last a couple of lifetimes at this rate. Or to fill up a bean bag chair.
But do open with caution. Those little pellets want desperately to stick to everything, to get everywhere.