Lauritsen Electroscope
date: label: Date made
content: 1934
name: label: manufacturer
content: McMillan, E. M.
label: designer
content: Lauritsen, C.C.
notes: label: Description
content: Edwin M. McMillan (1907-1991), an American chemist/physicist and Nobel laureate, made this electroscope in 1934, used it to investigate gamma rays and radioactive isotopes produced by the 27-inch cyclotron at the University of California at Berkeley, and donated it to the Smithsonian. Although primitive in concept and delicate in appearance, the electroscope was rugged and precise. The gold-plated quartz fiber, 1/25 the thickness of a human hair, sits inside an ordinary tin can. It was charged by momentary contact with a battery (using the black handle on top). Charles Christen Lauritsen (1892-1968), an immigrant from Denmark who earned a physics PhD from and became a professor at the California Institute of Technology, devised the form. He also instructed McMillan in the delicate art of drawing quartz fibers.
label: Description
content: Ref: “Edwin McMillan, Nobel Laureate and Chemistry Pioneer, Dies at 83,” New York Times (Sept. 9, 1991), p. B10.
label: Description
content: “DR. LAURITSEN. 76, PHYSICIST, IS DEAD,” New York Times (April 14, 1968), p. 76.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: California, Berkeley
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Modern Physics
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1978.2174.01
label: accession number
content: 1978.2174
label: catalog number
content: 1978.2174.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Electroscope, Lauritsen
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 30 cm x 20 cm x 20 cm; 11 13/16 in x 7 7/8 in x 7 7/8 in