Integrator Unit from Bush Differential Analyzer
date: label: date made
content: ca 1930
name: label: maker
content: Bush, Vannevar
notes: label: Description
content: This wooden box with a glass front contains two of the six original integrators from the differential analyzer designed by Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) for use in the electrical engineering department at MIT. Built from 1927, the differential analyzer was a room-sized analog, mechanical computing device designed principally to integrate equations. Building on Bush's example, differential analyzers would be built in Europe as well as the United States. They required repositioning of components for each problem carried out, and proved slower and less flexible - though initially more reliable - than electronic computers.
label: Description
content: After MIT had built improved differential anzlyzers, this one was moved to and used at Wayne University in Detroit. By 1956, it was no longer needed there, and given to the Smithsonian..
label: Description
content: For related transaction, with other parts to the MIT differential analyzer, see 1983.3002. For a more complete differential analyzer, used at UCLA, see 1983.0023.
label: Description
content: Reference:
label: Description
content: Larry Owens, "Vannevar Bush and the Differential Analyzer: The Text and Context of an Early Computer," <I>Technology and Culture</I>, vol. 37, #1, 1986, pp. 63-95.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Cambridge
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 Wayne University
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.314824
label: catalog number
content: 314824
label: accession number
content: 208694
objectType: label: Object Name
content: differential analyzer component
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (parts material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (case. lid material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (sides of case material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 55.2 cm x 96 cm x 96 cm; 21 23/32 in x 37 25/32 in x 37 25/32 in