Inverted Pendulum Seismograph
date: label: date made
content: ca 1930
notes: label: Description
content: Arthur J. Weed was a skilled mechanic who, as chief instrument maker of the U.S. Weather Bureau, built and maintained the seismograph that Charles Marvin had designed in 1895. Moving in 1920 to the Rouss Physical Laboratory at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Weed gained access to resources that allowed him to go further in this field. With the aid of engineering students, Weed built a inverted pendulum seismograph with a 750-pound weight. Photographs of Weed with this massive instrument ran as an A.P. story in several newspapers. One headline read: “Trapping earthquakes has become a popular business at the University of Virginia, where one of the most unique and sensitive seismographs in the country keeps a twenty-four hour watch for tremors.”
label: Description
content: Weed also designed a smaller inverted pendulum seismograph that could “be used in many places where a more elaborate installation is out of the question.” One account described a cylindrical steady mass of about six pounds resting on three wires placed in the form of an equilateral triangle to which an oil damping device is attached.” This is an instrument of that sort. It came to the Smithsonian in 1963.
label: Description
content: When Weed died in 1936, the chief seismologist of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey noted that “the science of seismology has lost one who has given much thought to instrumental problems, an active worker and a true friend.” The American Geophysical Union noted the loss of “a member who has long been active in the field of instrumental seismology.”
label: Description
content: Ref: “Seismograph is Homemade,” <i>Washington Post</i> (July 10, 1927), p. 12, and <i>Salt Lake Tribune</i> (July 10, 1927), p. 10.
label: Description
content: “Something New In Seismographs,” <i>The Telegraph</i> (May 4, 1932).
label: Description
content: N. H. Heck, “Arthur J. Weed,” <i>Science</i> 83 (1936): 404.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Virginia, Charlottesville
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Seismographs
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: University of Virginia. Department of Physics
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.323393
label: catalog number
content: 323393
label: accession number
content: 251562
objectType: label: Object Name
content: seismograph
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 22 in x 6 1/2 in; 55.88 cm x 16.51 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 21 7/16 in x 6 3/8 in; 54.45125 cm x 16.1925 cm