Nobert Ruling Engine
name: label: maker
content: Nobert, Friedrich Albert
notes: label: Description
content: The brass and steel ruling engine (33 cm in diameter) is screwed on three legs to a small wooden table. A larger central post goes through a hole cut in the table and terminates inside a rusted, rectangular metal housing screwed beneath the table top. There are two circular plates, one brass and one steel. The brass plate has a grooved edge for turning against a gear and numerous pinholes for ruling. The tracing and cutting mechanism--which moves forward and backward--has numerous rods and screws, including an ivory arc beneath a compass needle and calibrated from 0 to 40 by 1. The square steel bar across the center of the engine is marked: 104, 108, 112, 124, 126, 128, 132, 330, 140, 144, 150, 156, etc. A loose piece wedged at the center has a round disk calibrated from 0 to 90. There are two microscopes. These bore ivory graduated pieces, but only a dial calibrated from 0 to 30 is intact. The turning mechanism can be fitted against the brass plate, but it apparently never had a handle for turning. There is a brass dial calibrated from 0 to 12 by 2. Many of the parts and associated apparatus used by Nobert have been lost, including the diamond cutting head. This renders the ruling engine inoperable. According to previous cataloguing, there was once a lock (now missing) bearing a Yale and Towne insignia at the base of the engine.
label: Description
content: Nobert (1806-1881) was a self-trained instrument maker from Barth, Germany. He designed a ruling engine with which he marked fine lines on glass slides for making microscopic measurements. His test plates pushed opticians to develop more powerful objectives which might resolve all of Nobert's lines. The U. S. Army Medical Museum purchased this engine for $625.00 in 1899 from Mrs. L. C. E. Taylor (whose father, John Mayall, Jr. (1842-1891), demonstrated it in 1885).
label: Description
content: Reference:
label: Description
content: F. A. Nobert, "Ueber Kreistheilung im Allgemeinen und ueber einige . . ." <I>Verhandlungen des Vereins zur Befordering des Gewerbfleisses in Preussen</I>, 1845, pp. 205-212.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
label: Subject
content: Ruling and Dividing Engines
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.322303
label: accession number
content: 247805
label: catalog number
content: 322303
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Ruling Engine
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 53 cm x 59 cm x 46.5 cm; 20 7/8 in x 23 7/32 in x 18 5/16 in