Gravity Pendulum
date: label: date made
content: ca 1875
name: label: Associated Name
content: U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey
label: maker
content: Repsold
notes: label: Description
content: In the late 1840s, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, a noted German mathematician and astronomer, designed a pendulum that was invariable and reversible. Repsold in Hamburg began making pendulums of this sort in the early 1860s, and the International Association of Geodesy unanimously recommended their use. At the urging of Charles Sanders Peirce, the U.S. Coast Survey ordered one of these instruments in 1872. While in Europe in 1875, Peirce took possession of the pendulum, and swung it in Geneva, Paris, Berlin, and the Kew Observatory near London. Back in the United States, he swung it again at the Stevens Institute, in Hoboken, New Jersey.
label: Description
content: The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (as it had become) transferred the remains of this important instrument to the Smithsonian in 1955. They include three vertical rods of the tripod; the vertical member that once held a graduated scale; the vertical member that once held a telescope for viewing the scale; and one other small piece.
label: Description
content: Ref: Victor Lenzen and Robert Multhauf, "Development of Gravity Pendulums in the 19th Century," <i>United States National Museum Bulletin</i> 240 (1965): 301-348.
label: Description
content: [C. S. Peirce], "Measurements of Gravity at Initial Stations in America and Europe," <i>Report of the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey for the Year Ending with June 1876</i>, app. 15.
label: Description
content: Joh. A. Repsold, <i>Zur Geschichte der Astronomischen Messwerkzeuge von 1830 bis um 1900</i> (Leipzig, 1914), vol. 2, p. 27.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Germany: Hamburg, Hamburg
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.314638
label: accession number
content: 208213
label: catalog number
content: 314638
objectType: label: Object Name
content: gravity pendulum
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: poles: 47 in x 2 in x 1 in; 119.38 cm x 5.08 cm x 2.54 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: connector: 3 1/2 in x 1 in x 2 3/4 in; 8.89 cm x 2.54 cm x 6.985 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: point pole a: 40 in x 1 1/2 in; 101.6 cm x 3.81 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: pointed pole b: 46 in x 4 in x 2 1/2 in; 116.84 cm x 10.16 cm x 6.35 cm