Optical Press
date: label: date made
content: around 1870
label: date made
content: mid-nineteenth century
notes: label: Description
content: Around 1815, scientists found that some material when stressed will rotate the plane of polarization of polarized light passing through it. An optical press demonstrates that phenomenon.
label: Description
content: This example, found in a Smithsonian storeroom and transferred to the Museum in 1956, was probably part of the “large collection of articles of Foreign and curious research” that Joseph Henry, the physicist who served as founding Secretary of the Smithsonian, intended to use “to excite the love of learning” in the United States. The “SOLEIL / RUE DE L’ODEON A PARIS” inscription may refer to J. B. F. Soleil from whom, in 1847, Henry ordered “a complete set of articles for the polarization[,] diffraction and interference of light.” But, since most of this early apparatus was lost in a fire that swept through the Smithsonian "Castle" in early 1865, it is more likely that this instrument was made by Henri Soleil, son of J. B. F. Soleil, who worked at that address from 1849 until 1872.
label: Description
content: Ref: Maison Jules Duboscq, <i>Historique & Catalogue de tous les Instruments d’Optique Supérieure Appliqués aux Sciences et à l’Industrie</i> (Paris, 1885), p. 73.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: France: Île-de-France, Paris
topic: label: Subject
content: Science & Scientific Instruments
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.314953
label: catalog number
content: 314953
label: accession number
content: 212903
objectType: label: Object Name
content: optical press
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 1/2 in; 24.13 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 7/8 in x 9 3/4 in x 2 in; 2.2225 cm x 24.765 cm x 5.08 cm