Teylers Instrument Room

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Teylers Museum rooms
Teylers Museum map (English).svgFossil Room IFossil Room IIInstrument RoomR. van Stolk RoomLuminescene RoomOval RoomPrint RoomCoin and Medal RoomPaintings Gallery IPaintings Gallery IIBook RoomExhibition GalleryFoundation House
Instrument Room taken from the doorway to the Fossil room 2, with leyden jars in the foreground Teylers Challenge april 2012 - 7060.JPG
Instrument Room taken from the doorway to the Fossil room 2, with leyden jars in the foreground

The Instrument Room is a room in Teylers Museum which houses a part of the museum's Cabinet of Physics: a collection of scientific instruments from the 18th and 19th centuries. The instruments in the collection were used for research as well as for educational public demonstrations. Most of them are demonstration models that illustrate various aspects of electricity, acoustics, light, magnetism, thermodynamics, and weights and measures. The rest are high-quality precision instruments that were used for research.

Contents

History of the room

Originally all of the museum's collections were housed in the Oval Room from 1784. The electricity instrument demonstrations tended to make a lot of noise and distracted the readers of the books in the gallery, and after the mineralogical cabinet was built for the center of the room, demonstrations there became more difficult and a new demonstration and lecture room was built on the north side (today the Print room). This new room shared its purpose with the art gallery but as the number of instrument cabinets increased, was felt to be too dark, leading to the creation of a separate painting gallery in 1838. The current instrument room was built as part of an 1880-1885 extension of the museum, designed to have daylight from both sides for better viewing of the experiments. It is located between the Fossil Room II and the Oval Room.

History of the collection

Though Pieter Teyler van der Hulst was a patron of the arts and sciences, he was not a member of the Natuur- en Sterrekundig Collegie, a science society in Haarlem that was founded in the Patientiestraat in 1775. The popularity of the study of science and the ideals of the Dutch enlightenment were such that after his death however, when Martin van Marum joined the young Teylers Stichting, this proved quickly to become the emphasis of the society in the years to come. Teylers Museum was not alone. The society Oefening door Wetenschappen was also started in Haarlem in 1798 and lasted until 1892. It was Haarlem's reputation for the study of science that attracted Van Marum to settle there. When he became director of the collection of the Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen in 1778 and later, also of Teylers in 1784, he used the funds of both institutions to purchase expensive instruments and even whole scientific collections from personal estates. He started before he even worked there with a proposal to build his large elektriseermachine that forms the center attraction of the instrument room. Van Marum was not only the curator of the cabinet, he gave public laboratorium lectures from 1777 to 1803 on physics and geology. The number of demonstration models in the collection is directly related to his and his successors' need for demonstration models in Teylers lectures. Van Marum collected 350 demonstration models and set a precedent as lecturer-demonstrator for curators who came after him. Today there are over a thousand in the collection altogether.

Instruments on display

The centerpiece of the Instrument Room is the large electrostatic generator built by John Cuthbertson in 1784. This apparatus is the largest flat-plate electrostatic generator of the world and the oldest piece in the room itself, which is filled mostly with items from the 19th century. Surrounding this centerpiece are 10 numbered cabinets filled with instruments accompanied by numbered cards that can be cross-referenced to a guide located in the room.

Name
Year
Maker
Image
Chronometer Andreas Hohwü Andreas Hohwu barometer.jpg
Sound analyser with 8 resonator balls1860s Rudolph Koenig Koenig - klankanalysator purchased in 1996.jpg
Synthesizer1865after Hermann von Helmholtz by Koenig Sound synthesizer after Helmholtz by Koenig 1865.jpg
Synthesizer after Helmholtz1865after Helmholtz by Koenig Synthesizer after Helmholtz by Koenig 1865.jpg
Wire cable display case Guglielmo Marconi Wire cable display case.jpg
Cabinet I: thermometry heat conduction Cabinet I thermometry heat conduction barometry.jpg
Cabinet I Cabinet I.jpg
Cabinet II - measuring instruments (lower shelf) Cabinet II - lower shelf.jpg
PolytropeG.E. Sire Cabinet II - Polytrope after GE Sire.jpg
Cabinet III: electricity Cabinet III - electricity .jpg
Cabinet III Cabinet III - electricity.jpg
Cabinet III Cabinet III - electricity bottom.jpg
Cabinet III Cabinet III - electricity middle shelf.jpg
Cabinet III Cabinet III - electricity middle.jpg
Cabinet III Cabinet III - electricity upper shelf.jpg
absolute electrometer1883Thomson by Breguet Cabinet III - absolute electrometer after Thomson by Breguet 1883.jpg
Conductors (isolated with glass) to demonstrate the strength of electric charges don't depend on sphere size1840 Cabinet III - conductors 1840.jpg
small cylinder electrostatic generator1856 Jean Claude Eugène Péclet Cabinet III - electricity - 1856 small cylinder electrostatic generator after JCE Peclet.jpg
1860 spark measurer and 1865 discharger for spectroscope1860-5 Cabinet III - electricity - 1860 spark measurer and 1865 discharger for spectroscope.jpg
gold leaf electrometer1866 Cabinet III - electricity - 1866 gold leaf electrometer.jpg
induction machine1888 James Wimshurst Cabinet III - electricity - 1888 induction machine after J Wimshurst.jpg
electroscope1912 Franz S. Exner Cabinet III - electricity - after Franz S. Exner 1912 electroscope.jpg
spark duration demonstrator1859 Cabinet III - electricity - before 1859 spark duration demonstrator.jpg
electroscope1870 Cabinet III - electricity - c. 1870 electroscope.jpg
discharge points1890 Cabinet III - electricity - ca. 1890 discharge points.jpg
The small electricity machine developed by Martin van Marum as a studentGerhard Kuyper Cabinet III - small electricity machine.jpg
Cabinet IV: Telegraphy Cabinet IV.jpg
commutator for Telegraph1865 Cabinet IV - commutator for Telegraph 1865.jpg
contact breaker1865 Cabinet IV - contact breaker 1865.jpg
philips lightbulbs Cabinet IV - philips lightbulbs.jpg
Wireless telegraphy receiver1897Guglielmo Marconi Wireless telegraphy receiver after G. Marconi 1897.jpg
Cabinet V: geomagnetics and Geissler Cabinet V.jpg
Gas discharge tube with holder by Ducretet and Lejeune1862 Heinrich Geißler Cabinet V - Geissler tubes 1862.jpg
Universal geomagnetic instrument1877after Moritz Meyerstein & Henry Barrow Cabinet V - Universal geomagnetic instrument after M Meyerstein and H Barrow 1877.jpg
X-ray tube1930 X-ray tube 1930.jpg
Cabinet VII: optics Cabinet VII.jpg
reading telescopes1865 Carl August von Steinheil Cabinet VII - optics.jpg
uranium glass objects 1861 and photometer 18701861-1870 Cabinet VII - uranium glass objects 1861 and photometer 1870.jpg
Cabinet VIII: acoustics Cabinet VIII - acoustics.jpg
Cabinet VIII - sound Cabinet VIII.jpg
Cabinet VIII - sound Cabinet VIII - sound.jpg
Cabinet VIII - sound Cabinet VIII sound.jpg
Cabinet IX - sound Cabinet IX sound middle.jpg
Cabinet IX - sound Cabinet IX sound with resonating table.jpg
Cabinet IX Cabinet IX sound.jpg
Graphophone by Columbia Phonograph Company 1897CBC Graphophone by Columbia Phonograph Company 1897.jpg
Three almost identical telephone sets after Bell end of 19th centuryc.1880 Alexander Graham Bell Three almost identical telephone sets after Bell end of 19th century.jpg
Cabinet X: Heat, carbon arc lamps Cabinet X Heat carbon arc lamps.jpg
Cabinet X Cabinet X.jpg
galvanometer Leopoldo Nobili Cabinet X - galvanometer after F Nobili.jpg

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