Hopkins’ Metal Fork
name: label: maker
content: L. E. Knott Apparatus Company
notes: label: Description
content: Trade literature described this as “Hopkins’ Metal Fork Interference Tube for use with a Chladni’s Plate in illustrating interference of sound,” adding that if the fork of the interference tube was “held over two non-contiguous sectors, the sand strewn on the membrane is violently agitated. If the fork is held over two contiguous sectors, the sand is not disturbed.” William Hopkins (1793-1866), a Cambridge mathematics tutor who engaged in geological investigations, introduced the form in 1835.
label: Description
content: A brass tag on this example reads "L. E. KNOTT APPARATUS CO. / SCIENTIFIC SUPPLIES / 16 ASHBURTON PLACE / BOSTON."
label: Description
content: Ref: William Hopkins, “On Aerial Vibrations in Cylindrical Tubes,” <i>Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society</i> 5 (1835): 231-270.
label: Description
content: Peter Beckinsale, “Hopkins, William,” in <i>Dictionary of Scientific Biography</i>, vol. VI, pp. 502-504.
label: Description
content: L. K. Knott, <i>Catalogue of Physical Instruments</i> (Boston, 1912), p. 240.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Boston
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.326944
label: accession number
content: 264801
label: catalog number
content: 326944
objectType: label: Object Name
content: acoustic apparatus
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 18 in x 9 1/4 in x 2 3/4 in; 45.72 cm x 23.495 cm x 6.985 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 17 3/4 in x 9 1/4 in x 2 5/8 in; 45.085 cm x 23.495 cm x 6.6675 cm