Vannevar Bush's Profile Tracer
Object Details
- Description
- This experimental instrument for land surveying consists of a mechanism in a wooden box that is suspended between two wooden wheels with rubber tires. The wheels are aligned as in a bicycle, with the box in between. There is a roll of paper mounted on top of the box. If one runs the wheels over a surface, the combined action of a servo-mechanism and an integrator produce a profile of the land traversed which is plotted on the paper. The engineer Vannevar Bush received a patent for this instrument in 1912, and it was the subject of the master's degree dissertation he wrote at Tufts University the next year. Servo-mechanisms, integrators, and the graphical display of results played a major role in several computing instruments Bush later designed. He also is remembered for ideas about information retrieval that inspired later thinkers to develop what is now called hypertext.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- Gift of Vannevar Bush
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- Date made
- 1912
- ID Number
- MA.317853.01
- accession number
- 317853
- catalog number
- 317853.01
- maker
- Bush, Vannevar
- Object Name
- drawing instrument
- Physical Description
- metal (frame, mechanism material)
- rubber (wheels material)
- wood (mechanism material)
- paper (mechanism material)
- glass (mechanism material)
- Measurements
- overall: 32 cm x 156 cm x 55 cm; 12 5/8 in x 61 7/16 in x 21 5/8 in
- Place Made
- United States: Massachusetts
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Mathematics
- Mechanical Integrators and Analyzers
- Science & Mathematics
- Measuring & Mapping
- Subject
- Mathematics
- Record ID
- nmah_1195838
Related Object Groups
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