Vannevar Bush's Profile Tracer
date: label: Date made
content: 1912
name: label: maker
content: Bush, Vannevar
notes: label: Description
content: This experimental instrument for land surveying consists of a mechanism in a wooden box that is suspended between two wooden wheels with rubber tires. The wheels are aligned as in a bicycle, with the box in between. There is a roll of paper mounted on top of the box. If one runs the wheels over a surface, the combined action of a servo-mechanism and an integrator produce a profile of the land traversed which is plotted on the paper. The engineer Vannevar Bush received a patent for this instrument in 1912, and it was the subject of the master's degree dissertation he wrote at Tufts University the next year. Servo-mechanisms, integrators, and the graphical display of results played a major role in several computing instruments Bush later designed. He also is remembered for ideas about information retrieval that inspired later thinkers to develop what is now called hypertext.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Place Made
content: United States: Massachusetts
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
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Vannevar Bush
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.317853.01
label: accession number
content: 317853
label: catalog number
content: 317853.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: drawing instrument
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (frame, mechanism material)
label: Physical Description
content: rubber (wheels material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (mechanism material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (mechanism material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (mechanism material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 32 cm x 156 cm x 55 cm; 12 5/8 in x 61 7/16 in x 21 5/8 in