Physics Glassware Exhibition, Basement Gallery, 2001-2: General Label
Physics Glassware
Many technologies helped make the increasingly sophisticated laboratory equipment of physics. One of these was glass making, a technology usually associated with chemistry. It was indispensable in physics for experiments on the behaviour of electricity in a vacuum. The maufacture of complicated glass vessels developed as the knowledge of electric discharges in a vacuum advanced.
In 1676 Picard, an astronomer, observed a strange glow above the mercury in his barometer tube, eventually identified as an electric discharge. In the 18th century, the same phenomenon was demonstrated inside aurora flasks and tubes, named after the aurora borealis thought to be caused by electricity.
Geissler, a glassblower, invented his famous high voltage discharge tube in 1858. The technology was now in place for a host of similar tubes develped during the late 19th century, culminating in the x-ray tube in 1896 and the radio valve in 1904.
Other narratives:
- Inventory no. 59794 - Former Display Label
- Physics Glassware Exhibition, Basement Gallery, 2001-2: 'Assortment of Geissler tubes'
Related Objects:
- Inventory No. 68508, "Puluj Radiometer with Electrodes, c. 1890"
- Inventory No. 59475, "Crookes Mill Wheel Tube, by C. H. Gimingham, 1880" [1927-18], Crookes Laboratories
- Inventory No. 76040, "Crookes Vacuum Discharge Tube, by C. H. Gimingham, 1879" [1927-18], Crookes Laboratories
- Inventory No. 85581, "Maltese Star Vacuum Discharge Tube on Stand, c. 1890"
- Inventory No. 85138, "Cathode Ray Tube, Late 1870s" [1964-277]
- Inventory No. 56579, "Vacuum Tube Influence Magnetism on Cathode Rays, Late 1870s"
- Inventory No. 29308, "Geissler Tube Induction Coil, Late 19th Century"
- Inventory No. 96119, "Medical Geissler Tube, English?, c. 1880"
- Inventory No. 79230, "Crookes Single Bulb Radiometer on Stand, c. 1890"
- Inventory No. 62563, "Radiometer with Two Mills, c. 1890"
- Inventory No. 75974, "Puling Vacuum Discharge Tube with Mica Barrier, c. 1890"
- Inventory No. 28156, "Geissler Vacuum Discharge Tube, Late 19th Century"
- Inventory No. 21005, "Geissler Vacuum Discharge Tube, Late 19th Century"
- Inventory No. 31630, "Geissler Vacuum Discharge Tube, Late 19th Century"
- Inventory No. 69564, "Geissler Tube with Uranium Glass Vase on Stand, c. 1890"
- Inventory No. 87898, "Geissler Tube on Glass Stand, Late 19th Century"
- Inventory No. 15394, "Geissler Vacuum Discharge Tube, Late 19th Century"
- Inventory No. 17164, "Geissler Vacuum Discharge Tube, Late 19th Century"
- Inventory No. 18478, "Geissler Vacuum Discharge Tube, Late 19th Century"
- Inventory No. 21032, "Geissler Vacuum Discharge Tube, Late 19th Century"
- Inventory No. 24226, "Geissler Vacuum Discharge Tube, Late 19th Century"
- Inventory No. 59794, "Geissler Vacuum Discharge Tube, Late 19th Century"
- Inventory No. 67966, "Geissler Tube Vacuum Discharge, Late 19th Century"