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Science

Own a Little Bit of Berkeley Physics History 112

Posted by chrisd from the slide-rulers-rule dept.
Five foot slide rules? Brass and Wood balances? Bakelite Metering Equipment. This and more are up on the block as a result of UC Berkeley's physics department wanting to clear out old gear (they need the room). The San Francisco Chronicle has a story about auction. Apparantly, about 20 items will be auctioned in a "test the waters" sales this Sunday, and the balance of the 1000 pieces will be sold July 28th...
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Own a Little Bit of Berkeley Physics History More

Own a Little Bit of Berkeley Physics History

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  • hmmm (Score:2, Funny)

    by c0dedude ( 587568 )
    I was just thinking how much i wanted to learn how to use a slide rule.
    • But do you really want to learn how to use a slide rule on a 5 foot slide rule. Kind of big don't you think?
    • So they are selling a teaching slid rule? Cool! Wonder if its either a Pickett or K&E? Both were good ones! Have not seen one in about 30 years.

      Hum... If its a teaching one. Then it only has basic scales. Nothing fancy.

      Yep. I still have a set of them! Even a micro 10" metal one from Pickett. :) And they still work!
  • I got dibs on the Six tubes of assorted Tinker Toys. Haven't played with those in ages.

  • Woohoo! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Raul654 ( 453029 )
    When they start selling the stuff owned and used by the nobel prize owners, then I'll pull out my wallet
  • Will the good folks at Berkeley be accepting auction bids in grams of pot, or is there actual money involved?

    Thanks.
  • Why did they have a five foot slide rule? Such an item would be utterly pointless.

    The only advantage that slide rules have over log tables is the speed with which they can be used, but a five foot slide rule would be far too cumbersome for easy use anyway.

    • Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Rasta Prefect ( 250915 )
      Why did they have a five foot slide rule? Such an item would be utterly pointless.

      It's a teaching aid. We used to have one in my high school, hanging in the room where I had Calculus.
      • There were basic ones. Usually were made out of wood and were a pain to slide unless services. Bet it would be a beast to cleanup and service today. That is why Metal Slide Rule were the best. Last one I saw was in High School in both Math & Electronics classes.

        Just pull both my old Pickeet 1010-ES Power Trig and a 600-T. Both are metal and slide as good like they were new. Both have not seen service in at least 15 years.
    • The 5 ft. slide rule was intended to demonstrate to a new class how to use a slide-rule, the same way today where projector shows a class how to run a particular computer software. It'd be kinda hard to teach to a stadium of students with an actual size (~1ft) sliderule.

    • Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Dear god people, the larger the slide rule the
      more accurate it is. IE more decimal places
      • only so far as the dimensional stability of the material - and in a long, heavy rule you'd have nice thermal and stress gradients
      • PS - and, f*k, for that matter, it's only as accurate as the scribing mill
    • Remember now -- this is the age before computers; i am certain this slide rule -- like all the other rediculous liquid-nitrogen cooled P4 reaching three and a half GHz -- is a compensatory device for... erm... certain shortcomings.

      if you don't believe me on the "shortcoming" part -- ancidotal (sp?) evidence: Newton died a virgin.
      • You say that Newton died a virgin - how could anyone possibly know this? Perhaps he was a gentleman, who did not brag about such things.
        • Admittedly, it's speculation, but as far as anyone knows, Newton never had any romantic relationships -- get the Straight Dope [straightdope.com] here.
        • Newton spent the balance of his life as an alchemist and theologian. He believed, like many at the time, that scientific method was not the only way to obtain knowledge about nature. In fact, he spent a lot of his life reading ancient scripture and biblical passages, attempting to make a connection between religious knowledge and scientific knowledge, specifically in regard to the Temple of Solomon. His work in physics and mathematics is a mere fraction of his lifetime work. So it is quite possible that he had certain religious convictions that kept him a virgin. In any case, we now very many details about his life, as he and his assistant both kept detailed logs/diaries. So any romantic relationships would have probably popped up in there somewhere.

          JoeRobe
      • Gale Christiansen's In the Presence of the Creator hints that he had a romantic involvement with at least one woman ... can't remember her name ... but he supposedly complemented her on her `conversation' which had a different meaning/was the code word at the time.
    • It's for those who found smaller slide rules not enough of a challenge.
    • Well, it's obvious. It takes big hands to use a big slide rule. And you know what they say about scientists: big hands, big ......um, never mind.
    • Large slide rules were used in front of the classroom for teaching purposes. They were hoisted right over the blackboard (a REAL blackboard) in front of the class. Yeppers, it took a whole semester to master one of those things. 5' slide rules weren't the largest. I've seen bigger in large classrooms.
    • Forget it! Its missing the cursor-hairline! Building one would be a real pain.

      Also its very basic. It only has scales A through D. At least it has C & D. Can do some items with it. IE it equal to a basic 4 function calculator.

      Down further is a "regular" Slide rule.

  • Expiration date? (Score:4, Funny)

    by kaustik ( 574490 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @10:15PM (#3790623)
    This is great... but I believe LSD loses its potency after sitting around in those dusty basements for so long...
  • Maybe I can find an already built potato cannon for sale :)

  • cool antiques (Score:2, Interesting)

    by gripdamage ( 529664 )
    I sure prefer science-related antiques to crumbly old chairs, tables, lamps, etc. When cleaning out my great-grandparents' home after they both had died we discovered some cool wooden globes. Even one of those solar system model thingamajigs, with wooden planets and iron gears, where you turn the handle and the planets spin and rotate around the sun, the moons orbit the planets, etc.

    The chairs, tables, lamps, etc. went to goodwill. My parent's kept the solar system.
  • At my school, they just throw out all their old stuff. We've found all kinds of great stuff, from a (working) LCD projector to all kinds of lab equipment, Old function generators, power supplies, an optical pyrometer, night vision lens, and more.
    There's a dumpster find almost every night or two.
    • I'm a Berkeley student and working at the labs here for the summer, and we do in fact throw most of the stuff out. However, things have to be accounted for before being discarded. However, the really old stuff is still sitting around. In fact, there's a really old particle accelerator sitting in one of the hallways in the physics building. I'm not sure if it still works, and it's dusty as hell, but it's pretty neat looking.

      This .sig now open source
      • My mother is science dept. head at a local private school. This past april, they had to move out of their classrooms; the labs are being renovated. When she saw some of the stuff they had to move out, she was horrified. Apparently, the chemistry teacher during the early 80's (long gone) had been all too happy to take donated chemicals from the community. The buisnesses saw it as a wonderful opportunity to dispose of the very dangerous chemicals they they didn't want to pay to dispose of. My personal favorite was the magnesium they found, submerged in oil to keep it from exploding and burning down the school. Just goes to show you what some buisness are willing to do.
        • You must be thinking of sodium or potassium, not magnesium.

          Sort of destroys the credibility of your whole post, besides the fact that any science lab would want stuff like that, you can do a lot of interesting experiments with sodium or potassium.
          • Not to mention that sodium or potassium in pure metal form are never by-products of industrial manufacturing processes. They react with nearly anything willing to accept an electron, so any "waste" sodium or potassium are going to be in compounds, usually salts.

            The parent is also correct, nobody stores magnesium in oil. Usually it is stored as a metal ribbon resembling a roll of tape. It oxidizes and generally has a white magnesium oxide layer on the edges. Before an experiment, a chemistry teacher will steel wool the ribbon down to make it shiny.
          • "...you can do a lot of interesting experiments with sodium or potassium."

            Experiments, hell. I used to work for a guy that kept sticks of sodium submerged in kerosene. When the groundhogs got uppity, he'd drop a few sticks down the hole, stand 20' away, and hit it with a garden hose. A satisfactory kaboom, and the groundhogs kept a low profile for a while.
        • Blockquoth the poster:

          Apparently, the chemistry teacher during the early 80's (long gone) had been all too happy to take donated chemicals from the community. The buisnesses saw it as a wonderful opportunity to dispose of the very dangerous chemicals they they didn't want to pay to dispose of.

          Just to second this, I'm a high school physics teacher. Our chem guy will routinely accept "donations" of noxious, terrible stuff from companies. Of course, coming with no documentation (MSDS) and sometimes even in unlabelled glassware, the stuff is actually quite useless from a pedagogical viewpoint. Then, after it sits in our stockroom for a few years, we have to pay to dispose of it anyway. Meanwhile, the company not only avoided disposal costs ... they get to write off the chemicals as a charitable "donation" to the school!
  • Someone at Harvey Clar's had a bit of auction on the brain when entering this one.

    1071 Wood cased resistance selector, probably 1930's and a Bakelite cased relistance selector, probably 1940's

    Note that 'L' and 'S' aren't even remotely close to one another on the keyboard. :)

    LEXX
  • UC Berkeley is clueless. They are selling a treasure!

    In contract, check out this university's Scientific Instrument Museum [humboldt.edu].

    OK, it's really just a few display cases, but the online exhibit is extensive.

  • tell ya what my dad still has... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    --my pop is a retired mainframe pigiron guy. grew up with chunks of mainframes and whopper "maps" on the kitchen table, plus he always had a small radio/tv/whatever shop in the basement.

    he's still got a patio table he made out of a 3 foot across plexiglass looking platter that was the "hard drive" disk from some old machine. I don't really remember accurately, but I think he told me it was ten megs, costed like 10 g's or something way back, maybe 100g's, some huge number.

    He used to take me to where he worked once in a great while, MAN O MAN did the pooter companies back then sell BLINKENLIGHTS crap to the customers! Whatta scam! hahahaha! They had like motorized hydraulic doors when all you needed was like a "door" with a handle on hinges, stuff like that. All kinza lights. I woulda "got into" pooters much earlier, but I'm color blind and back then to do any hardware/electronics you needed A-1 color vison, so there ya go, I didn't, even though I really tried hard. Whizzes me off to this day, oh well...I can build regular boxen now, it's no large feat anymore.

    yep, I had a slide rule. We had the first TV on the block, too,, dinky tiny. I still have one of his old leather tech tool boxes,too.

    I do know a few times joe goobermint woke him up middle of the night on the phone, he has to boogie, and he gets the royal treatment flying off to some seekrit gov install someplace that he can't talk about. cold war action. whizzbang stuff. He worked for RCA, big blue for a spell, sperry and burroughs. He said he liked rca's pooters the best, why I don't know, I was a kid then. I do remember getting to use the teletype terminal and typing some crap to someone across the country in the early 60's, that was cool. Usually he could sneek me in to putter around if he had midnight shift in the summer during school break, ie, "no bosses around then". Big ole weird looking monitors. Printers the size of volkswagens. Stacks of punch cards, streaming tape reels on racks that raised up and down outta nifty looking boxen. neat-ass stuff, tell ya whut. Enough juice to run any normal small city. Sub floors with enough wire to get to the moon and back, enough air condo to cool off--well,, A LOT, that's how much!

    I am still in awe of his tech ability, he's a geezer mad inventor crank now, still a hoot. He built a solar water heater for our swimming pool in the 60's, stuff like that. Built his own electronic ignition system for the family wagon. It started MUCH better in the winter after that, I remember all the stuff was built into a maxwell house coffee can. He taught me to use a 'scope, stuff like that.

    He'd probably like this museum.

  • Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)

    by RaboKrabekian ( 461040 )
    Aside from nostalgic Berkley physics major alumni, a great idea would be for some udnerfunded school districts to pick up some of this stuff. I'm not a physics teacher, but I'd imagine a good quantity of it would be great for the high school level.

  • Is this at the auction house place (on telegraph ave.) or some place on the Berkely Campus?

    Thx.
    S

  • Additional Coverage (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dragons_flight ( 515217 ) on Saturday June 29, 2002 @01:33AM (#3791089) Homepage
    Contra Costa Times [bayarea.com]

    UCB Campus News [berkeley.edu]

    I'm a UCB physics grad student. The primary motivation for the sale isn't to make money or make room for new gear. They actually have to do it because the part of the physics building is scheduled for a seismic retrofit, and the temporary building can't accommodate all the old stuff in the attics.

    Some material will be kept for display and for gifts to retiring faculty.
    • I attended St. John's College [sjcsf.edu] (Annapolis and Santa Fe), where the Laboratory program reads original works and recreates original experiments. We used some extremely lovely and apparently quite rare and valuable balance scales that were donated by the Los Alamos labs when they switched to the modern electronic scales. Anyway, is any of this equipment stuff that was used in 19th and early 20th century EM experiments (for example) where contemporary students use radically different equipment? (And I'm keenly interested in that gravitation instrument.) Here's the junior year lab schedule in SF [sjcsf.edu], and here's the senior year lab schedule [sjcsf.edu] in SF.
      • Most of it dates from the early to mid 20th. While, I don't have a really good feeling for what all is included, I do know that a substantial portion of it is coming from the kinds of early electrical gadgets that UCB was using in student labs. As far as I know though, none of this material has been identified as being initial run stuff from any of the historically important experiments of the early 20th. Some of the items do clearly replicate important experiments though, primarily for teaching purposes, I believe.

        I couldn't find a complete list on Harvey Clar [harveyclar.com], but I bet there will be one closer to the full auction.
  • Yes, I know, Berkeley really is an old school but still... using a local auctioneer?

    Had they used Ebay, the entire world could have bid which would have maximized the price Cal fetched for the equipment. And just perhaps, by posting pictures on Ebay, some of the equipment might have been identified that even their "ace in the hole, Shugart" couldn't identify.

    Strange call on Cal's part. Then again, this is Berkeley we're talking about.
  • There will be at least one person who goes to the auction and says:

    Brass and wooden balances? I thought it said Bras and wooden balances....
  • Every high school in the country had several of these until, say, 1975 or so. I have quite a few slide rules (my favorites are a cute little pocket slide and a very convenient circular), but I probably wouldn't spring for one of these unless it was dirt cheap.

    Now, sometimes large slide rules were made for doing precise calculations -- for example some used in navigation. These are quite interesting and worth collecting. However, the giant classroom slide rules are not particularly precisely made. They're just big so that the class can follow the calculations the teacher was making.

  • I often helped out the physics lab department in high school(just a few years ago.) Our main concern was always finding space for all the equipment that gets used throughout the year. I remember one time, we threw away several boxes full of really old stuff, and by really old i mean 1900-1930. I managed to identify a few ammeters and galvanometers, but looking up the items at our favorite auction site showed no bids at all. I believe you can purchase replicas from specialty stores for very little money.

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