This clockwork orrery simulates a fictitious solar system that slowly turns three planetary bodies around a sun. Upon completing an orbit each planet chimes a Tibetan singing bowl and, as the speeds of their revolutions differ, this generates a unique out-of-phase melody that is deterministic but which can appear random.
The machine is powered by gravity and as the weight falls its motion is gated by the flying pendulum escapement mechanism. The rewinder resets the machine every 5 minutes.
This piece was made by Oxford Brookes University student Alex Allmont who has developed a number of LEGO Technic kinetic sculptures exploring accidental music and complex systems. See his other work at www.alexallmont.com.
The machine is extremely fragile – please do not touch!
You can see the orrery in action in the following video.
High-voltage, high-frequency electricity is available to the world because of science genius Nikola Tesla and his namesake coil is the granddaddy of it all. The seeds of the second Industrial Revolution are sown and Edison’s inadequate D/C power system slain on the altar of progress and innovation during the ‘War of the Currents’.
Used in early radio, x-rays, etc., even modern consumer electrical devices like TVs and computers have some form of solid state Tesla coil in them. When he invented radio (as confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of 21 June 1943), this ground breaking discovery relied on the Tesla coil for it to work. Hats off to Tesla and the Tesla coil!
Publications
The Experimenter, volume 4, number 5, March 1925 – edited by Hugo Gernsback, the magazine cover features a 1,500,000 volt Tesla coil experiment, part of the Electronics Department of the University of California annual electrical demonstrations.
The Prophet of Science – originally published in Real Heroes comic, October 1946, and almost certainly the first comic strip biography of Tesla.
Contributed by Spiro Vranjes
Plinth Dates: 20-22 September 2011
Logical machine inspired by Jevons' 'Logical Piano', by 'Postmaster Jevonson'.
These devices were made by an Oxford student in the 1950s. They were directly inspired by seeing the original Jevons’ Logical Piano in this Museum. It is especially appropriate that they be exhibited here because the Jevons’ machine is currently on display in the Eccentricity exhibition.
The wooden machine is made of a cigar box. It has a central red knob which indicates 16 logical functions. Rotating the knob makes a sequence of electrical connections with a cocoa tin lid inside the box. The battery-powered lamp lights up when the two side switches for the truth or falsity of P and Q satisfy the logical function indicated by the knob.
The booklets kept in the Pifco box represent a further development. They have windows cut out to represent logical premises and conclusions. When the cards are superimposed and no light shows through the combination is logically correct. Subsequently, pre-cut IBM punched cards were used to demonstrate the same results.
Submitted by ‘Postmaster Jevonson’
Plinth Dates: 16-18 September 2011
Observatory model by Jack Ells: wood, balsa wood and art construction card.
A 1-in-8 scale model of a unique astronomical observatory. The telescope (a 32-cm Newtonian reflector) sits in a separate, cold compartment while the observer works in a cosy room.
The observatory rotates on a circular track. A complex motorised framework in the pit below rotates about the polar axis, tilting the observatory by ±5o (!), to follow the stars automatically for 40 minutes.
Notice:
Oblong, wooden telescope tube Insulated cabin walls Adjustable observing step Hand-cranks conveniently nearby control observatory Camera ‘Norton’s Star Atlas’ book Observer’s notebook with drawing of Jupiter Picture of Royal Greenwich Observatory Moon map Observer’s beer!
The telescope, built by engineer and amateur astronomer Jack Ells, operated very successfully for many years. The telescope was originally built as an alt-azimuth instrument. The motorised, equatorial sub-frame that made the observatory tilt was added some years later.
The observatory was described in Peter L. Manly, Unusual Telescopes (Cambridge University Press, 1991).
‘Polyethylenterephthalat fish of the future’, plastic, acrylic paint, by Ann-Kathrin Schubert
‘My work mainly consists of illustrations on paper and painting plastic bottles. The fish exhibited here is part of a series titled ‘The Fear of Life’ that includes 8 different fish without wings and 6 large-scale paintings on paper. The work describes a transition of a static and dead structure turning into a living organism and vice versa, for example plastic bottles becoming coral reef fish or humans turning into dust. The Polyethylenterephthalat fish has not only evolved into a fish after being a discarded object but has developed wings to fly, meaning it is more advanced or adapted to its surroundings.’
Ann-Kathrin Schubert
Plinth Dates: 9-11 September 2011
Restored air brush by the Air Brush Manufacturing Co., c.1885.
Despite earlier claims to the contrary, the first mass produced art tool for photo retouching and art was sold by the Air Brush Manufacturing Co. in 1885. Based on a device designed by Abner Peeler that employed a jam spoon, a sewing needle, some fencing staples and blocks of wood, this instrument led the way for modern image manipulation. Artwork created with this restored Air Brush has been exhibited in the Mall Galleries London, proving beyond doubt that it was an intricate way of painting. All mechanical paint spraying devices followed this instrument – it was a real world first.
This instrument has been used to train photo historians at Kodak’s International Museum of History.
Contributed by Dr Andy Penaluna
A cabinet reliquary by Barbara Mercer
Plinth Dates: 6-8 September 2011
‘The Rose in Winter’, mixed media, by Barbara Mercer
The Victorian medicine cabinet, lined with feathers and winter snowberries, contains a pastel and gouache drawing of a single rose, incorporating the names of the old roses removed from the Oxford Botanic Garden in 2009. The soundtrack mixes the voices of people recalling the memories and powerful emotions associated with the rose, and the voice of an actor reciting the names of the lost roses. This work was inspired by the medieval reliquaries in the Church of the Madonna del Orto in Venice, the loss of the roses, and the death of my mother in November 2008.
Barbara Mercer
Plinth Dates: 2-4 September 2011
Speedometer by the Waltham Watch Company applying a patent of Nikola Tesla, c.1925
When he wasn’t revolutionising the electrical and radio world, pioneering science genius Nikola Tesla was involved in a number of engineering projects. One of these was in collaboration with the Waltham Watch Company to use Tesla’s speedometer patent (US #1209359, the first patent for a speedometer).
The Waltham Watch Company, of Waltham, Massachusetts, was a prestigious instrument maker, making Abraham Lincoln’s timepiece, as well as having one of their watches flown on a moon-landing mission in 1971. It is only fitting that their association with the great Tesla should have yielded what is arguably the first device to measure speed, distance, and time.
Contributed by Spiro Vranjes
Plinth Dates: 30 August – 1 September 2011
Box with Beards, mixed media, by Charlotte Allen
The existing paper images are taken out of their original context to then be cut and re-used to form a new meaning and story in the 3D house of the cube.
Charlotte Allen
Plinth Dates: 23-28 August 2011
Two examples of the ‘storm glass’, one to the design of Robert FitzRoy.
According to Robert FitzRoy, hydrographer, meteorologist, and captain of HMS Beagle during Darwin’s voyage, instruments known as ‘storm glasses’ were being made in England for more than a century before he published The Weather Book in 1863: “Who was the inventor is now very uncertain; but they were sold on old London Bridge, at the sign of the ‘Goat and Compasses’.”
Having begun to study these glasses in 1825, “as curiosities rather than otherwise”, FitzRoy concluded that they indicated what he called the ‘electrical tension’ of the wind and could be used as meteorological instruments. He determined that the liquid, whose changing appearance was examined by the user, should consist of camphor, partly dissolved in alcohol, with water and some air, hermetically sealed in a glass tube. He warned that, as well as instruments of his design, “There are many imitations, more or less incorrectly made.”
One of the instruments on display was made by Watson Brothers of Pall Mall, well known for their microscopes, and carries FitzRoy’s approval. The other, with manuscript instructions, may be one of the many imitations, or even an instrument bought at the ‘Goat and Compasses’.
The instruments are displayed on the Fourth Plinth by Brian Wilson, who records buying the ‘Storm Glass’ in ‘an antique shop in Ulverston once a small ship-building town in Lancashire. I purchased it c.1963 with a second, labelled “Admiral Fitzroy’s Weather Glass, made by Watsons, 4 Pall Mall London”, as an unscientific curiosity.’
Plinth Dates: 23-25 September 2011 High-voltage, high-frequency electricity is available to the world because of science genius Nikola Tesla and... View Article
Plinth Dates: 16-18 September 2011 A 1-in-8 scale model of a unique astronomical observatory. The telescope (a 32-cm Newtonian reflector)... View Article
Plinth Dates: 2-4 September 2011 When he wasn’t revolutionising the electrical and radio world, pioneering science genius Nikola Tesla was... View Article
Plinth Dates: 23-28 August 2011 According to Robert FitzRoy, hydrographer, meteorologist, and captain of HMS Beagle during Darwin’s voyage, instruments... View Article
