Gyroscope
notes: label: Description
content: This counterpoised gyroscope with a 5.5-inch wheel was in the instrument collection of the Smithsonian, and probably purchased by Joseph Henry, the first Secretary of the Institution. Friedrich Fessel, an instrument maker in Cologne, devised the form in the early 1850s. Julius Plücker (1801-1868), a professor of physics at Bonn, published an account in 1853. Examples were shown in London in 1854.
label: Description
content: Ref: Plücker, “Ueber die Fessel’sche rotationsmaschine,” <i>Annalen der physik und chemie</i> 178 (1853): 174-177.
label: Description
content: “Fessel’s Gyroscope,” <i>Scientific American</i> (Jan. 13, 1855): 138, from <i>London Artisan</i>.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Science & Scientific Instruments
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.315172
label: catalog number
content: 315172
label: accession number
content: 219145
objectType: label: Object Name
content: gyroscope
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 1/2 in; 13.97 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 23 in x 10 1/2 in x 3 1/4 in; 58.42 cm x 26.67 cm x 8.255 cm