Model of a Thermodynamic Surface Showing the Normal Three-State, by Richard P. Baker, Baker #258
date: label: date made
content: ca 1910
label: date made
content: ca 1905-1935
name: label: maker
content: Baker, Richard P.
notes: label: Description
content: In the 1870s, physicists in Scotland and and the United States began to make three-dimensional models of the thermal properties of matter. This plaster model of a thermodynamic surface has a wooden frame painted black. A mark etched into the right side of the model indicates that temperature increases with the height of the model and pressure increases going backward. Volume would seem to increase going left to right across the front.
label: Description
content: This is one of a series of nine models Richard P. Baker made that relate to thermodynamic surfaces. It was designed during his years at the University of Iowa, under the supervision of his German-born colleague Karl Eugen Guthe (1866–1915), who taught in the physics department there from 1905 until 1909. The model remained in Baker’s catalog as late as 1931.
label: Description
content: This particular example of the model was on loan for exhibition at MIT from 1939 until the mid-1950s. It, along with the other models in accession 211257, came to the Smithsonian from MIT in 1956.
label: Description
content: For general references, see MA.304723.045.
label: Description
content: Baker delivered a paper to the April 1910 meeting of the Chicago section of the American Mathematical Society that was entitled "On a class of equations representing normal and abnormal three-state bodies." A summary - which gives equations - is given in the reference cited and used to give a rough date of 1910 for the model.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Baker, R.P., Mathematical Models, Iowa City, 1931, p. 18.
label: Description
content: Slaught, H.E., "April Meeting of the Chicago Section," Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, vol. 16, 1910, p. 458, 462.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Frances E. Baker
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.211257.046
label: accession number
content: 211257
label: catalog number
content: 211257.046
objectType: label: Object Name
content: geometric model
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: plaster (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: pink (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: brown (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: grey (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: blue (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: bolted and screwed (overall production method/technique)
label: Measurements
content: average spatial: 9.6 cm x 25.6 cm x 20.6 cm; 3 25/32 in x 10 3/32 in x 8 1/8 in