Spinthariscope
date: label: Date made
content: 1920s?
notes: label: Description
content: A spinthariscope consists of a fluorescent screen, a magnifying eyepiece, and a speck of radium. By looking through the eyepiece, one sees scintillations caused by alpha particles from the radium hitting the screen. William Crookes, a prominent English chemist, designed the form in 1903, coined the term (deriving it from the Greek word for scintillation), and arranged for its manufacture. The inscription on this example reads “UNITED STATES RADIUM CORPS. / NEW YORK.”
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Modern Physics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Department of Chemistry
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1994.0125.18
label: accession number
content: 1994.0125
label: catalog number
content: 1994.0125.18
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Spinthariscope
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal; glass; leather; radioactive source (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4.2 cm x 4.8 cm; 1 5/8 in x 1 7/8 in