Learning from and Lecturing on the Weston Collection
by Eiju Matsumoto
I was invited by the New Jersey Institute
of Technology to present a lecture on June 25, 1999. I had visited
the archives of the New Jersey Institute of Technology four times
before, and it was during my second visit that I found Weston's
engineering notes, which propelled me into detailed research on
Weston.
My lecture, titled "History of
Precise Readings Applied to Electrical Measuring Instruments"
(based on a report in Vol. 117-A [1997] of the Journal of the Institute
of Electrical Engineers of Japan), began with astronomical observation
instruments of the fourteenth century and led to my findings on
the scale that Weston used in electrical measuring instruments in
the nineteenth century.
Related topics can be viewed at:
Weston is one of the most important
historical persons for the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and
the Institute kindly invited me to deliver a lecture about Weston
to make the archive more widely known. My two-hour lecture was held
online over the Internet to allow anyone to attend it through the
NJIT’s homepage.
The Weston Collection of the New Jersey
Institute of Technology perhaps marks the origin of measuring instruments,
as well as the origin of Yokogawa. Since the firm was established
in 1915, Yokogawa has been manufacturing instruments similar to
Weston's precision measuring instrument exhibited in its Robert
W. Van Houten Library. As part of my lecture, I showed a video reconstruction
of hand-drawing work of scale graduation for electric measuring
instruments using an original jig.
*1: Trans.IEE of Japan, Vol.117-A, 1997
Me (Eiju Matsumoto) answering questions following
the lecture |
Robert W. Van Houten Library |
Hand-drawing Work at Yokogawa in the 1950's |
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