RT Journal Article
T1 Ventriloquised voices
A1 Tom Ritchie
YR 2018
VO 10
IS Autumn 2018
K1 Museum collections
K1  Meccano toys
K1  Material Culture
K1  Objects that speak
K1  Models
K1  Engineering
AB This article builds on previous literature on museums and material culture by presenting an examination of the changing stories that a particular object — a rebuilt version of Douglas Hartree’s Differential Analyser — has been used to tell in the Science Museum, London. The analogy of ventriloquism is introduced to explore the ways that the object has been presented and interpreted in the Museum. It is used to illuminate how objects can carry the various meanings, interests, and prejudices (conscious and unconscious) of the human actors involved in their creation, collection and display. The article describes how the voices ‘ventriloquised’ through Hartree’s rebuilt ‘Trainbox’ have imbued this later version of the machine with the physical and instrumental functions of the original Analyser to make the object ‘fit’ with varying stories of computation, differential analysis, and models. The paper argues that the voices ventriloquised through the Trainbox have turned the object into the ‘material polyglot’ that sits in the Information Age gallery of the Science Museum today. The article concludes with the question of whether we can truly understand how objects change at the ‘hands-on’ level in museums, without including the simultaneous stories that an object shares with its audiences.
NO Henry Calvert joined the Science Museum staff in 1934 and was appointed as the Curator of Mathematics and Calculating Machines before the Second World War. He worked at the Ministry of Supply during the war, calculating the terminal ballistics of projectiles. While in this role, he may have met Hartree who was based at the Servo Panel of the Ministry of Supply, where the successor to the original Hartree Differential Analyser had been put to work on various equations relating to the Allied war effort, calculating ballistics tables, plane trajectories, and explosive detonations. On returning to the Science Museum in 1949, Calvert was placed in charge of the Astronomy and Geophysics collections working on a series of projects, including authoring a catalogue on the Museum’s collection of scientific-instrument maker trading cards. Calvert later collected the Hartree Differential Analyser (Science Museum, Inv. 1949-134) on a short-term loan in 1949, before subsequently extending it.
NO The Manchester Machine was used by Hartree during his time at the Servo Panel for the Ministry of Supply throughout the war. The original Meccano Differential Analyser was not officially used for wartime purposes but was instead kept in Hartree’s personal study. After the war, the Manchester Machine continued to be used by the National Physical Laboratory and eventually became available for collection in 1973, when half of it was collected by Jane Pugh at the Science Museum, with the other half being collected by the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, where both parts remain today.
NO As part of A V Hill’s ‘Hill’s Brigands’, the older and younger Hartree calculated differential equations by hand during the First World War, helping to create firing tables for anti-aircraft guns. William would go on to work with Douglas throughout the Second World War until his death in 1943.
NO For more information on the Self-Consistent Field Theory and the Hartree-Fock method, refer to C Froese Fischer, ‘General Hartree-Fock Program’ Computer Physics Communication, Vol. 43 (3) (1987), pp 355–365; further detail about Vannevar Bush’s machine can be found at V Bush, ‘Instrumental analysis’ Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 42 (10) (1936), pp 649–669; and for more on the story of William and Douglas Hartree’s work during the First World War, refer to H H Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann (Princeton University Press, 1973).
NO Meccano is a child’s construction toy invented by Frank Hornby in 1898 and patented in 1901. It consists of standardised metal girders and screws and was designed to be used by boys to build a series of models. The Hartree Differential Analyser is of specific interest as despite being constructed from Meccano, it was used throughout the pre-war period for ‘real-world’ applications leading to the development of a number of similar machines (made from Meccano and non-Meccano materials) that were used in the Second World War.
NO For more information on the Navier-Stokes equations relating to fluid mechanics, refer to A E Chorin and J E Marsden, A Mathematical Introduction to Fluid Mechanics (1993).
NO This demand led to use of a number of analogue computers, as well as the development of Turing’s Universal Machine, and the digital EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) at Cambridge alongside the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) and EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) in America. For more information on these computers, refer to D A Mindell, Between Human and Machine (Johns Hopkins, 2002), and G Ifrah, The Universal History of the Computer (John Wiley and Sons, 2001).
NO An example of this type of core mission when collecting objects can be observed in the policy documents of the Science Museum relating to the development of its collections: Science Museum Group: SMG Collection Development Strategy <https://group.sciencemuseum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/SMG-Collection-Development-Strategy.pdf> [accessed 1 April 2017]
NO Calvert letter to Hartree, 1 July 1949, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO Calvert letter to Hartree, 1 July 1949, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO Hartree letter to Calvert, 14 July 1949, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO Hartree letter to Calvert, 14 July 1949, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO Hartree letter to Calvert, 14 July 1949, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO Hartree letter to Calvert, 14 July 1949, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO Calvert letter to Director of Science Museum, 15 July 1949, Sc. M. 8640/1/1
NO Calvert to Director of Science Museum, 15 July 1949, Sc. M. 8640/1/1
NO Calvert letter to Director of Science Museum, 15 July 1949, Sc. M. 8640/1/1
NO Calvert letter to Director of Science Museum, 15 July 1949, Sc. M. 8640/1/1
NO Calvert letter to Director of Science Museum, 15 July 1949, Sc. M. 8640/1/1
NO Calvert letter to Hartree, 3 March 1950, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO Hartree letter to Calvert, 14 July 1949, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO Calvert letter to Hartree, 3 March 1950, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO Calvert letter to Hartree, 3 March 1950, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO Calvert letter to Hartree, 3 March 1950, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO Calvert internal memorandum to the Director of Science Museum 19 July 1950, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO Hartree letter to Calvert, 5 April 1957, Sc. M. 8640/1/1
NO Hartree letter to Calvert, 5 April 1957, Sc. M. 8640/1/1
NO Due to the particular loan status of the Trainbox when Calvert had first taken it on loan, it was not until 2003 that it was formally gifted to the Museum by Douglas Hartree’s son Richard.
NO Pugh letter to Diamond at the Simon Engineering Lab, 5 November 1973, MSO237/26
NO Pugh letter to Diamond at the Simon Engineering Lab, 5 November 1973, MSO237/26
NO Pugh letter to Diamond at the Simon Engineering Lab, 5 November 1973, MSO237/26
NO Pugh letter to Diamond at the Simon Engineering Lab, 5 November 1973, MSO237/26
NO Pugh reflection report after trip to Michel at the National Physical Laboratory, 7 December 1974, Sc. M. 1949-134/4
NO Metropolitan Vickers Log Book 1936, Wroughton, MS474/2
NO Pugh reflection report after trip to Michel at the National Physical Laboratory, 7 February 1974, Sc. M. 1949-134/4
NO Pugh reflection report after trip to Michel at the National Physical Laboratory, 7 February 1974, Sc. M. 1949-134/4
NO Pugh reflection report after trip to Michel at the National Physical Laboratory, 7 February 1974, Sc. M. 1949-134/4
NO A handbook for the Mathematics and Computers gallery, ‘A Guide to Computing Then and Now’, MS0237/23
NO Wetton letter to the Science Museum, 27 November 1991, Sc. M. 1949-134/5. The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester collected their half of the Manchester Machine in 1988, returning it to working order in 1994, with the assistance of Charles Lindsay and volunteers from the Computer Conservation Society.
NO Swade handwritten note on the letter from Wetton to the Science Museum, 27 November 1991, Sc. M. 1949-134/5
NO Bunce letter to the Science Museum, 29 April 1997, Sc. M. 1949-134/5
NO Swade handwritten note on the letter from Bunce to the Science Museum, 29 April 1997, Sc. M. 1949-134/5
NO Calvert letter to Hartree, 1 July 1949, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO ‘Differential Analyser Model’ 10 October 1957, Sc. M. 1949-134/3
NO Model Walkway Summary Document ‘Making the Modern World’, SM Informal Collection
NO Science Museum Object Acquisition Form completed by Richard Hartree, 2003, Sc. M. 1949-134/5
NO Jane Pugh’s reflection report from her trip to Jack Michel at the National Physical Laboratory, 7 February 1974, Sc. M. 1949-134/4
PB The Science Museum Group
SN 2054-5770
LA eng
DO 10.15180/181005
UL http://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/browse/issue-10/ventriloquised-voices/
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WT Science Museum Group Journal
OL 30