Brass box spanner
- designer:
- Francis William Aston
Brass box spanner, with a rectangular piece of brass and two glass plate components, from Prof. F.W. Aston's original Aston Mass-Spectrograph, by Francis William Aston, Cambridge, England, 1918-1925
The first mass spectograph was designed by Cambridge scientist F W Aston (1877-1945). It could separate isotopes, which are chemically identical atoms with different masses. The spectograph's globe contained a compound of the material to be tested and an electric current then knocked electrons from the material's atoms. Aston worked with J J Thomson (1856-1940) to show that over 50 elements were made up of atoms of different atomic masses but the same atomic numbers.
Details
- Category:
- Nuclear Physics
- Object Number:
- 1927-1085 Pt5
- Materials:
- glass, brass (copper, zinc alloy) and solder
- Measurements:
-
overall (components only): 15 mm x 100 mm x 60 mm, 0.02kg
overall (including display table): 1330 x 1380 x 810 mm
- type:
- component - object
- credit:
- Prof. F.W. Aston
