French-Style Sector Signed by Nicolas Bion
date: label: date made
content: 1681-1733
name: label: maker
content: Bion, Nicholas
notes: label: Description
content: This brass instrument has rectangular arms hinged at one end. The hinge is decorated with a flower on both sides. One side has double scales of chords, running from 10 to 180; of solids, running from 1 to 64; and for the specific weights of five metals, marked with their symbols. The outer edge has a scale that runs from 1/4 to 64 and is labeled poids des Boulets. The sector is marked: N. Bion (/) AParis.
label: Description
content: The other side has double scales for equal parts, running from 10 to 200; for architectural drawings, running from 1 to 64; and for the lengths of the sides of inscribed regular polygons, from 12 sides to three sides. The outer edge has a scale running from 1/4 to 64 and labeled Calibre des pieces.
label: Description
content: Nicolas Bion (c. 1652–1733) made and sold mathematical instruments in Paris in his own shop and as royal maker for Louis XIV. He included a lengthy discussion of sectorial scales in his famous 1709 manual on the construction and use of mathematical instruments. Albert Haertlein (1895–1960), who collected this sector, graduated with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1918, served in the engineering corps of the U.S. Army during World War I, and taught engineering at Harvard from 1919 until 1959. He was prominent in the American Society of Civil Engineers.
label: Description
content: References: Nicolas Bion, <i>Traité de la construction et des principaux usages des instruments de mathematique</i> (Paris, 1709), 29–74; "News From the Classes," <i>Technology Review</i> 21 (1919): 645; Albert Haertlein, Papers, HUG4444, Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, Mass.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: France: Île-de-France, Paris
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
label: Subject
content: Sectors
label: Subject
content: Rule, Calculating
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content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
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content: Sectors
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content: Science & Mathematics
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content: Trigonometry
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Mrs. Albert Haertlein
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1985.0580.05
label: accession number
content: 1985.0580
label: catalog number
content: 333930
objectType: label: Object Name
content: sector
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: .4 cm x 17.5 cm x 3 cm; 5/32 in x 6 7/8 in x 1 3/16 in