The last museum we visited before the conclusion of the study abroad was the Museum of Arts and Crafts. This museum contained many models and artifacts from scientific history. This included things like some of the tools and devices used by Antoine Lavoisier, who many say is the founder of modern chemistry. There was also the calculator designed by Pascal and clocks and watches from the earliest ages of their existence. They also had the original Foucault Pendulum on display, which is the pendulum experiment that helped prove that the Earth rotates.
The museum had a heavy emphasis placed on many civil and mechanical constructs as well with different machines on display along with things like bridges and models of monuments. The monument models mostly depicted the Statue of Liberty. There were many different models that showed its construction, but the coolest model of the statue was in a little room we could go into and see a miniature of what it would have been like to travel by boat into New York City after the statue was complete.
- Zacharia Houghton
I found it really interesting how many models they had. I liked seeing how these models were used to convince people to fund and as a map of what it would look like. I really liked how it showed models from different things, from the Statue of Liberty to everyday buildings.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed being able to see some of the inventions/tools that were used to make history. It was special to see Pascal's calculators, the Lavoisier's apparatus for hydrogen and oxygen synthesis, as well as the Foucault pendulum again.
ReplyDeleteThe mechanical calculator section was quite impressive considering the age of the examples shown, mid 1600s mechanical calculators are pretty impressive considering how far their modern counterparts (didn’t) make it. Of a notable amount of importance to me personally was the thinner more wide/tall one. I have a mechanical calculator I got from a garage sale for a couple dollars made of brass and plastic, and it works in much the same manner. From what I was told about my example they can be used to add/subtract/multiply/divide, though the last two take a bit more brainpower than I usually have. Considering how complicated they can get, adding/subtracting polynomials, that’s pretty impressive for that early.
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