Abstract
SEVERAL daily newspapers recently published a letter from the Institute of Physics over the signatures of Lord Rutherford and others asking for the co-operation of anyone possessing pieces of apparatus likely to be of historical importance. In 1925 the Institute of Physics appointed a committee to advise on the preservation of such apparatus. This committee is anxious to trace any pieces with which fundamental research in physical science has been carried out, and to arrange for their preservation. The committee has also entered upon the task of drawing up a catalogue of such pieces. Several pieces of great historical importance have already been secured for the nation and are now housed in the Science Museum at South Kensington, and the response to the recent letter has brought to light several other important pieces. Articles describing and cataloguing such pieces are published from time to time in the Journal of Scientific Instruments. Many readers of NATURE may have such apparatus in their possession or under their charge and the Secretary of the Institute of Physics, 1 Lowther Gardens, Exhibition Road, London, S.W.7, will be grateful for any information that will assist in tracing such pieces or in completing the catalogue. For the benefit of future historians of physical science it is desirable to have as complete a record as is possible of the work of British physicists, and it is to this end that this task has been undertaken.
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Scientific Apparatus of Historical Importance. Nature 130, 125 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130125b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130125b0