Ford Instrument Company Ball & Disc Integrator
date: label: date made
content: ca 1960
name: label: maker
content: Ford Instrument Company
notes: label: Description
content: Instruments for finding the area bounded by curved lines (integrators) date from the nineteenth century. This twentieth century example is based on a mechanism invented by British engineer James Thomson and used by his brother William (later Lord Kelvin) in constructing the first harmonic analyzer in 1876. The object shows modifications and refinements made by the American inventor Hannibal Ford. It consists of a metal mechanism held in an aluminum frame painted white that is attached to a black bakelite base. The mechanism includes two (rather than just one) hardened steel balls that roll against one another. The bottom ball is turned by a disc on the bottom driven by an input gear. The top ball drives a roller.
label: Description
content: A metal tag on the front of the base reads: 2 ½ Inch (/) BALL AND DISK (/) INTEGRATOR (/) Presented by (/) FORD INSTRUMENT COMPANY (/) DIVISION OF SPERRY RAND CORPORATION.
label: Description
content: Ford's integrators were used in devices for aiming guns on ships of the U.S. Navy from about 1915 into the 1940s. The company merged with Sperry Corporation and, in 1955, became a subdivision of the newly established Sperry Rand Corporation. This object dates from after the establishment of Sperry Rand and before the donation of the object to the Smithsonian in 1961. A leaflet describes “Ford Precision DBR Integrators.” Here the acronym DBR is defined to mean “DIsk-Balls and Roller Integrator.”
label: Description
content: Compare 1982.0751.06 and 1979.0751.36.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: “Ford Precision DBR Integrators,” no date.
label: Description
content: Accession file.
label: Description
content: A.B. Clymer, "The Mechanical Analog Computers of Hannibal Ford and William Newell," <I>Annals of the History of Computing</I>, 15, #2, 1993, 19-34.
label: Description
content: K.C. Epstein, <I>Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth Century Technology Theft Built the National Security State<I>, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2024.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Queens, Long Island City
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Mechanical Integrators and Analyzers
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Ford Instrument Company
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.319517
label: catalog number
content: 319517
label: accession number
content: 239018
objectType: label: Object Name
content: integrator
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 11.5 cm x 30.8 cm x 25.6 cm; 4 17/32 in x 12 1/8 in x 10 3/32 in