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Description: | Natural Philosophy Makers.Patrick Copland began a collection of equipment and demonstration apparatus at the end of the 18th century. The earliest material in the collection dates from the mid 18th century and the most recent material the end of the 20th century. Copland was a first class mechanic and he continued to make apparatus throughout the four and half decades of his tenure. Copland's assistant technician was John King, a clock-maker by trade, who manufactured the Professors demonstration apparatus. Together Copland and King reflect Aberdeen University's first class resources and commitment to instrument making. Marischal's collection of objects often reveals the close working partnership between the maker and inventor, with instruments such as: Sir William Thomson's Quadrant Electrometer made by James White, Optician, Mathematician and Philosophical Instrument maker of Glasgow; Joule's Water Churning Apparatus for the demonstration of the conservation of energy, made by the Aberdeen Instrument maker John M Miller. A wide number of inventors are included in this collection with examples of: Microscope and Accessories by J. Swift; Binocular Microscope by Smith, Beck and Beck (1857 -1864); Prism Spectrometer by John Browning; Professor Albert Ewing's Magnetic Hysteresis Curve Tracer; Regault's Calorimeter; Halley's Diving Bell; Foucault's Pendulum; Edward M Clarke's version of Biots Black Mirror Polariscope; a master clock by D Gill and Son (watchmaker to the Queen); and John King's Dead - Beat escapement.
Highlights include: A Dent Chronometer which keeps accurate time to within about half a second a day manufactured by Dent of London who were responsible for the construction of Big Ben; A John Lorimer Dipping Compass for the investigation of terrestrial magnetism made by Jeremiah Sissons, which is believed to be a unique prototype. The Nobel Prize winning apparatus designed by Professor G.P.Thomson and developed at Marischal College in the late 1920s, only remains as an archive photograph. This apparatus gained Thomson a joint Nobel Prize (shared with the American Physicist C.J.Davidson) award for investigation into the experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals. Thomson was a Professor of Natural Philosophy at Aberdeen University 1922 -1930. Detailed information regarding the makers of Natural Philosophy instruments held at Marischal College can be found at the Natural Philosophy website via the University of Aberdeen homepage.
Super collection: Natural Philosophy Collection.
Objects: Water Churning Apparatus; Equatorial Telescope; Galvanometer; Dipping Compass; Quadrant Electrometer; Graded Current Meter; Microscope and Accessories; Binocular Microscope; Prism Spectrometer; Magnetic Hysteresis Curve Tracer; Calorimeter; Diving Bell; Pendulum; Lamps; Polarised Telegraphic Relay; Differential Thermometer; Polariscope; Refracting Telescope; Master Clock; Dent Chronometer; apparatus for electron diffraction; Graham's Dead-Beat Escapement. | Subjects: | History of Science | Temporal: | 18th Century - 20th Century | Source: | University of Aberdeen | Address: | King's College,
AB24 3FX | Contributor: | Acquisition details: Natural Philosophy Collection. | Identifier: | ABDNP:CLD22 | Relation: | ABDUA:CLD00 | Go to resource |
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