Help Identify These Mysterious Scientific Objects

I happened upon this article and couldn't help but go through all of the photos to see if I indeed did know what any of them were. As it happens, I couldn't recognize any of them. I have taken ten photos and posted them in this thread for easy review.

At the link I will provide you will find larger and colored photos of the objects as well. I wondered too how these instruments could have been lost to time and simply forgotten about. So much so that no one knows what in the world they were used for. It would be great if a member could identify one or more of these!

For more than a century, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have calibrated America's measurements, setting common baselines for everything from weights to time to the fat content of milk. The work has involved a gadgeteer's fantasy of instruments -- time standards and refractometers, galvanometers and magne-gages, thousands of tools that make measurement possible. Yet even as NIST became the world's preeminent source of quantification, they simply lost track of what some of those old instruments did.

In coming months, NIST will add hundreds more mystery tools. On the following pages are a few of our favorites among those already posted. They and other artifacts can be seen in higher resolution in NIST's archive. If you know what any of them are, let NIST know.

www.wired.com...

Rights - Use of the images from NIST Digital Collections is not restricted, but a statement of attribution is required. Please use the following attribution statement: 'National Institute of Standards and Technology Digital Collections, Information Services Division, Gaithersburg, MD 20899 Accession Number 2010.0353.001

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/eec3fb131eb5.jpg[/atsimg]

Wooden Box With Multiple Terminals and Dials and a Wood Box With One Dial at the Top

Now the one on the right would be more identifiable if it had a t-bar charging handle coming out of the top of it.

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Black Cylindrical Instrument With Small Round Window Set on Tripod and a Instrument With Eight Dials Set in Wooden Frame

Something nuclear on the left? Something sadistic on the right?

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Square Wood-Framed Instrument With Two Dials and some Wood Heads

No clue about the left picture and the right one just creeps me out.

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Ross Precision Computer and a Small Cylindrical Instrument on Tripod

Now the one on the left is listed as a Ross precision computer on the web site. I'm not sure if they need further help in identifying it. The one on the right could be some sort of bong to compliment the wood heads.

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Metal Instrument in Wooden Case and a Resistance Box

The left one is certainly some kind of information extraction device. The right one is for resisting the one on the left.

Seriously though, if anyone knows what any of these things are please do follow the link and give the geniuses at the NIST a break!

I could take a few educated guesses on these but im going to sit back and see what everyone says because honestly im not sure. But S&F for the find....you have definitely peeked my interest.

reply to post by jackflap

Some interesting instruments, most look they came from around the turn of the tweenth century.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0876e28e4a1f.jpg[/atsimg]

The instrument on the right came from Leeds and Northrup a company that basically went out of business in 2000, it was sold off in pieces. There is a company in Pennsylvania that services their products.

www.callab.net...

Most of these object or machines look very odd, we have come such a long way in instrument technology that is makes these look primitive by todays standards.

I would like to be able to identify them, hopefully someone will come along who can.

Interesting find.

S&F

The black box looks like it might be a safe or something but i dont know!! Thats just the first thing that came to mind. Maybe each nob had to be turned to a specific number and then it opens. Or each one has its own code and all have to be entered for it to open.

I am by no means an expert but to me most of them look like musical equipment-old synths/amps/mixers.

Do they know roughly how old they are? Interesting....

Like I said I'm no expert but I'm well into my music and thats what they look like to me!

These are the instruments they were supposed to use to investigate 9/11. No surprise they didn't recognize them. Tell them not to give it another thought....

The two items with electrical posts and a dial or dials on them look like adjustable voltage batteries or a device that sits in line with a voltage source and enables adjustment. The dials could be used to turn potentiometers.

At least one of them has got to be a debigulator. the third one down is definitely a Frog exaggerator.

I wish I had a clue what they were, they look very cool and steam punk though, some of them would make a good PC case

Originally posted by jackflap

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4cc1eb31a6ed.jpg[/atsimg]

Ross Precision Computer and a Small Cylindrical Instrument on Tripod

Now the one on the left is listed as a Ross precision computer on the web site. I'm not sure if they need further help in identifying it. The one on the right could be some sort of bong to compliment the wood heads.

A bong? Really now!

It looks like some kind of level. You adjust the screw-like 3 feet which are clearly designed to be turned and adjusted by hand, until the internal little plumb bob points straight down, then you have something oriented with respect to gravity.

The picture doesn't clearly show the top but it's possible other things attached to it, like maybe a rod sticking out the top.

I can tell the engineering function of some of the other devices also, but the one with all the dials on it has a place for a connector, and you'd also need to have whatever that connector connects to in order to determine the ultimate purpose of those knobs, they look like crude rheostats with not too many contact points.

I'm not sure why the heads are so creepy to you, couldn't they just be like miniature mannequins? I'm not sure what the vertical rod is for though, but a clearer picture might help as it looks like there's detail on the rod we can't see in the photo.

A lot of them look familiar. The 2 standing ones are levels. I think for surveying. Etc...

The one with the 4 knobs and the other with one knob look like resistance boxes.

And the other gizmos with tons of knobs may be the same. Likely not.

The one in a carrying case looks like a balance scale.

The round hairbrush looking item is an Atlas slide rule.

And I have definately seen something similar to the head shot pic. Oh let me think.... Ok this one is driving me nuts, since I have seen it. Is this a display from the front window of the dept of weights and measure?

Originally posted by Aquarius1
reply to post by jackflap

 

Some interesting instruments, most look they came from around the turn of the tweenth century.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0876e28e4a1f.jpg[/atsimg]

The instrument on the right came from Leeds and Northrup a company that basically went out of business in 2000, it was sold off in pieces. There is a company in Pennsylvania that services their products.

www.callab.net...

Most of these object or machines look very odd, we have come such a long way in instrument technology that is makes these look primitive by todays standards.

I would like to be able to identify them, hopefully someone will come along who can.

Interesting find.

S&F

The object on the right looks like an electric train transformer I had as a kid. You could control the speed of trains on up to four tracks with the knobs. The two terminals at top were wired to the tracks.

At least 2 of those boxes look very much like Wheatstone bridges and one appears to be a variable shunt for current measurement (the one to the left of the 3 heads). The heads make me think of the mid 20th century experiments in 'dummy head' audio recording which did work remarkably well in recording the same spatial characteristics a live listener would experience but I could be very wrong as always.

The cylindrical instrument on a tripod looks like some kind of vacuum chamber instrument to me. The circular device next to it is a type of circular slide rule.

Img2- Eletro shock Therapy Machine

IMG3- Eletro Shock Therapy or lie detector test machine

Creepy, indeed.

Originally posted by jackflap

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/70a57a7530f5.jpg[/atsimg]

Square Wood-Framed Instrument With Two Dials and some Wood Heads

I'm taking a wild guess on the heads, but maybe early prosthetic instruments. I mean I dunno how old these are but if they dated back to the OSS wasn't the OSS pretty much responsible for inventing plastic surgery and altering identities with surgery. Otherwise I guess their very nice hair mannequin?