Melloni Bench
date: label: date made
content: early 1840s
name: label: maker
content: Ruhmkorff, Heinrich Daniel
notes: label: Description
content: Joseph Henry, the first notable American physicist after Franklin, was in Europe in 1837, meeting scientists and purchasing apparatus for research and classroom demonstrations at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). While in Paris, Henry spent time with Macedonio Melloni, the Italian physicist who had recently connected the properties of radiant heat with those of visible light. In 1841, Henry commissioned a travelling friend to procure a Melloni apparatus from Heinrich Daniel Ruhmkorff, an up-and-coming instrument maker in Paris. This example, used at Princeton, seems to be part of that apparatus. The inscription reads “Ruhmkorff Rue des Orfevres 6.”
label: Description
content: Ref: Ref: Emanuela Colombi, Matteo Leone, and Nadia Robotti, “The emergence of Melloni’s optical bench,” <i>European Journal of Physics</i> 38 (2017).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: France: Île-de-France, Département de Ville-de-Paris
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Princeton University
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.330581
label: catalog number
content: 330581
label: accession number
content: 299612
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Melloni bench
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 15 1/16 in x 40 in x 7 in; 38.25875 cm x 101.6 cm x 17.78 cm