George Atwood - Atwood’s Machine from A treatise on the Rectilinear Motion and Rotation of Bodies (Cambridge, 1784), 1784

Item

Identifier: RB-GA1784-1

Staff Only

George Atwood - Atwood’s Machine from A treatise on the Rectilinear Motion and Rotation of Bodies (Cambridge, 1784) still image

Scope and Contents

From the Collection:

Caltech Images is a collection of over ten thousand images representing Caltech's history and the people who have contributed to the Caltech story. It includes historic and contemporary photographs of people and places, reproductions of historic scientific artifacts and art, and illustrations drawn from Caltech's rare book collection in the history of science and technology.

Dates

Creation: 1784

Conditions Governing Access

For more information consult the Caltech Archives Reproduction and Permissions.

Extent

1 photographs (negative)

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Additional Description

Abstract

As mathematics tutor at Cambridge University in the 1770s and 80s, George Atwood was responsible for introducing students to Newtonianism. To help with this task -- and to quell lingering debates about inertia and the living force of matter -- Atwood fashioned a machine that soon became known eponymously. The machine employed an ingenious system of weights, pulleys and a pendulum clock which demonstrated Newton’s laws of motion.