A couple years back, a friend found a box of glass slides at MIT that had been created for a presentation in the 60's or very early 70's. That's way before PowerPoint was invented, and perhaps even before 35 mm slides. In fact, it was also clearly before computerized data collection systems.
Here is a scanned image of the slide that caught my attention. It was apparently created to display how data was collected on an experiement that was launched on a rocket flight. The data was recorded by taking time-lapse photos of instruments that one might find on a lab bench!
The top image contains a circular chamber with radial tracks in it, which is probably bubble chamber that recorded the arrival of protons and electrons, along with a gauge at the center of the bubble chamber to record the pressure. The bottom image contains a line that is probably from an oscilliscope, and an analog stopwatch to record the time at which the image was taken.
Based on what was going on at that time at MIT, my guess is that it was one of the early experiments to study cosmic rays from the sun or X-rays from astronomical sources.
Nick Morgan left a comment saying that he was the one who gave me the slide. Thanks Nick!
At the time, he also offered me free cheese, which I declined.
Posted by: Michael Muno | October 03, 2006 at 05:56 PM