No Words are Powerful Enough To Express The Importance Of Basic Scientific Research To Each Of Us And Our Future. We must fight for its rights!

Perhaps we should recognized, sponsor and establish a  yearly world celebration for the 12 most significant scientific instruments. one a month. It would be educational.
We suggest the first two candidates should be:

1, Galileo's   Telescopes Internationally famous, broadened our perspective by introducing us to the Universe.

2, Nobili's     Astatic Galvanometers; gave us our first meaningful connection to the  micro universe of the electron. completely revolutionizing our finger tip control of great power: tapping  the energy of the atom,  communicate around the world and to the planets,  looking into our genes putting our  telescopes on other planets etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc..

Both instruments deal with the flow of  fundamental particles; ( photons with telescope) (electrons with galvanometer) from a historical point of view they both are key examples of how  basic scientific research really works not our popular view, but the dull tedious work funding, marketing, and laboratory that goes into every discovery all of this is hidden from us because of the lack of suitable words (Remember No Words are Powerful Enough)

Galileo's telescopes, and early examples of  astatic galvanometers are on display at the  IMSS in Florence Italy  The telescope is out in front one of the first things one see's. The little astatic galvanometers that showed us how to have  finger tip control of enormous power is almost hidden in a darkish room off to one side. Hmmm?

Both these  instruments were made by Natural Philosophers who were interested in  searching out Natures  secrets. The technologist developing  these instruments started out with simple off the shelve materials  wood, glass, and wire to make their instruments. They used these primitive tools and their current knowledge  to design and build them. They used them to do basic research. and made significant fundamental discoveries, discoveries that made enormous differences in our everyday world, discoveries that  helped in improving the instruments (tools) which in turn  made more discoveries keeping the information loop growing to even more discoveries. How can we possibly ignore such an instrument or instruments and the scientist and technologist using them? What little we know about them has and can at times  been swamped by authors attention to the personal habits and eccentric behavior. The instruments and discoveries  total ignored or poorly described.

 Galileo's telescope which show us views of  the magnificent universe we live in gave us the first hint of the number of stars out there that we never could  have seen with the unaided eye. They gave us a poetic understanding of who we really were and are.

click here to visit our page on making this fine and very precise instrument for Adler Planetarium.

Electrons  are the messengers connecting our  ears, eyes, nose, and sense of touch to our brains. They also do the  shuffling of the activities of the brain. They do the chemistry of the universe.  There are more electrons in our bodies than atoms and molecules, and  there are many more electrons in the universe then stars. With this endorsement why has there been such  little recognition of the instrument and the technologist that opened the door to the universe of the electron with the astatic galvanometer and  as Galileo opened the door of the astronomical  universe with his photon telescope?

Why has this very important instrument and its inventors  been  woefully neglected?  
 Is it because there is apparently  little to no emotional people drama in the personal lives of the scientist who worked on and used them?. Are there no stories strong enough to write a book that would sell? Is it because electrons acts in a very anti social manner, always trying to get away from each other. Silly questions perhaps; however, wouldn't it be helpful to us if  we had a better grasp of story of the electron and its varied and busy life?

Don't they ever get tired? Isn't it sad that  electrons are not treated like the super stars that they are? What would happen if they went out on strike?

This is a working example. We have instruments such as this in our collection some are for sale. Visit our home page. Click here for more details.

Astatic Galvanometer by Definitions & A Bit of History

A few examples of the galvanometer and astatic galvanometer, concepts and uses. A Demonstration Galvanometer (Tangent)   Above a very simple classroom Oersted demonstration galvanometer. showing the presence of a magnetic field generated by an electric current. A current source to be measured can be connected in three configurations, current can go  through  1st through ,bottom  2nd, top and 3rd, around  the coil. This is not a astatic galvanometer because it only has one needle. The unit is initially is set up so the needle and coil point in a north south direction. The needle interacts with the magnetic field of the earth and that generated perpendicularly by the current flowing through the coil.  The needle deflect as  the tangent of the of the angle of the needle to the north south line. It is  thus often called a tangent galvanometer. It also  gives the direction of current flow by the direction the needle moves, toward the east or west direction. This galvanometer has a  range in amperes. The  more turns the coil has the stronger  the magnetic field becomes for the same current thus increasing its current sensitivity of deflection of the needle. Some meters have coils with thousand of turns in the coil in an attempt to measure small currents. Unfortunately the electrical  resistance of the coil goes up and the current for a given voltage goes down. Also the needle always has the earth magnetic field to content with so there is a limit to the sensitivity it can achieve in this configuration. There are a number of ways of reducing these affect. The best solution was mounting another compass needle above or below the first but reversing it .i.e. north over south and south over north poles. Its called the astatic galvanometer.  The needle is usually suspended with a light thread of silk which gives the needle set a slight torsion to over come. More advanced  meters had a mirror attached to the needle. A collimated source of light  is brought onto the mirror and as it rotated with the current, the movement of the spot of light moves. The amount it moves depends on the distant the receiving scale is from the mirror. The further the distance of the scale from the mirror the more sensitivity the instrument is. It was not unusual for one of the authors to use spot distance upward 30 feet.  One disadvantage  was the magnets had considerable weight and therefore inertia   giving it the habit of oscillating back and forth like a pendulum. Some meters used a copper coil form others a copper sheet very close to the needles as a Faraday break to dampen the swinging. The movement of the needle and its magnetic field generated a current in the copper sheet. This current generated it own magnetic field that worked against the needle magnetic field reducing swing of  the movement. The movement was generally placed in a glass covered chamber to protect it from drafts. These instrument had high sensitivity and one their early jobs was  in the studies of  electrophysiology by their inventor.   Thousands and thousands electro mechanical gadgets bosomed forth from the astatic galvanometer  It was at the root of most of our early discoveries and inventions that we now take for granted. Below are just a few. When two wire of different metals are joined together at one end and the junction heated it  generates a voltage that can be measured across the open end. It acts as a thermal battery. In the reverse sense if one route current thru this junction in the correct direction  it will cool the junction. A demonstration apparatus that combines  a square box like coil with different  metals and a pair of magnetized needles forms an apparatus which is an astatic galvanometer for showing the thermal electric  Seebeck phenomena. The top of the box coil  is copper, the bottom  bismuth. At their junctions they form  thermocouples. Heating one  will generates a voltage difference between the dissimilar  metals causing a current to flow around the loop. This current  generates a magnetic field that acts on  the astatic apposing compass needles causing them to rotate, thus  indicating the heat generated a current flow in the box coil. the picture above shows one from these instruments which is in our collection.

Below note the astatic galvanometer is center stage of a typical laboratory set up  to measurement resistance of a special coil such as Dr. A. Bell's Telephone   ,   Dr. A. Bell's Metal Detector   and T Edison work  in electrical instruments including the Edison effect leading ultimately to the vacuum tube the late 1800's.

Another version of the operation of astatic galvanometer for the readers consideration and a bit of the development history by Instruments of Natural Philosophy "T.B. Greenslade Jr
Before the invention of the astatic galvanometer the existing galvanometers had a serious defects measureing small currents. Instrument such as the tangent galvanometer the galvanoscope and other simple galvanometers  the needle responded to the vector sum of the horizontal component of the magnetic field of the earth and the magnetic field produced by the current being measured. As long as the galvanometer is being used for qualitative measurements, it is important to turn the apparatus so that the compass needle points toward magnetic north when no current is applied to the coil.  Because the earths magnetic field is comparably strong only sizeable electric currents could be measured.

The development of the astatic magnetic needle by Leopoldo Nobili (1784-1835) in 1825 took the opposite path by eliminating the effect of the earth's magnetic field on the needle. A pair of needles is mounted parallel to each other, but with the poles reversed. This combination has a net magnetic dipole moment of zero and thus has no preferred direction in the earth's magnetic field. The lower of the magnetic needles is inside the coil which carries the current under test, and alone experiences a torque due to the resulting magnetic field.  .

Visit  Link 1 and  Link 2  At the IMSS in Florance Italy to see some of the earliest example of these instruments and a brief history of their development.

Our replica of Galileo's beautiful Telescope The other important instrument in our lives.
Click  Picture to make it larger

Click here to visit our page on making this fine and very precise instrument at Griffith Observatory

 Below are close in shots of our Galvanometer.

The scale and the coils under the scale

Checking out the operator of the instrument

The input binding posts and the bottom of the coils

One of the leveling feet

The top of the suspension and zero adjustment

A scale for an astatic galvanometer
 

They come in a range of sizes. Below are some tangent galvanometers small, medium, and large.

One of our Tangent galvanometer 6" high

One  of  our Helmholtz coil tangent galvanometer 14" high

They got pretty big... Below is a 12 foot high   Helmholz Galvanometer (astatic?)


The Largest Galvanometer in the World. Manufacturer and Builder, vol. 17, issue 11 (November 1885)

THE IMSS  in Florence Italy has not only the exiting Galileo telescopes but also examples of Nobili instruments.
A must see on your visit to Europe.

No Words are Powerful Enough To Express The Importance Of Basic Scientific Research To Our Past, Present, And Future

Please Click Here For More Detail 

copyright 12/30/2006Jim & Rhoda Morris
All photos and written material are by Jim & Rhoda Morris unless noted otherwise. Free personal and educational use and reproduction is encouraged; all commercial rights are reserved

1-15-07- connections----------Photons and electrons can both treated as particles .  They both flow. The movement of electrons on the surface of a star  generates photons. some of which are collected by the objective lens of Galileo's telescope the photons are processed by the lenses and are directed into the observer's eye where they are converted back to electrons movement. This is   further processed electrically and sent  to  the brain where more electrons are  processed  into  an image which is further process with more electrons  into  an interpretation of what we see. This information is further process by even more electrons such as into the movement of our fingers jotting down  notes in a notebook. Electrons electrons, they are everywhere doing everything but they're not given credit for anything.

1-17-07 Neither Galileo nor Nobili invented their instruments,  Both instruments were amplifiers of a phenomena discovered by earlier work. Their instrument were used to make quantitative measurements of phenomena that could not be made with  unaided humans senses.  both made break through  improvements  in their  instruments which let us see and measure things that or forever changed our world!

1-18-07 junk stuff there are about 6 * 10^-9 grams of electrons per second  in 1 ampere???
or 6*10^-3 grams per second per micro-amps    or 6 milligrams of electrons????

Hydrogen is 1 gram per mole.
 there are 6.02 * 10^ 23 atoms per mole
 one electron is 1/1825 of the weight of a hydrogen atom
therefore  1 mole of electrons = 1/1825  of a gram =0.000547 grams or 0.547  milligrams
so 5.47 * 10^-4 grams/ 6.2 * 10^23 electrons per mole  = 0.88 * 10 ^-19 grams per electron
 

1 amp is a coulomb per second

1 coulomb is abt 6.24 10^18 electrons

??????????0.88 * 10^ -19 grams per electron  * 6 * 10^18 electrons per second  = 5.28 * 10^-1 I'm to tired to finish this and I'm going to bed

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