Object Details
- National Bureau of Standards
- Sperling, Edward O.
- designer
- Nutting, Perley Gilman
- Description (Brief)
- Luminous Sign with helium gas designed by Perley Gilman Nutting (1873–1949) and made by Edward O. Sperling at the National Bureau of Standards. Exhibited at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904.
- Description
- Label found with object reads: "Luminous Sign Designed by P. G. Nutting / Made by Sperling / National Bureau of Standards / Exhibited at St. Louis Exposition 1904".
- From Rexmond C. Cochrane, Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards (Washington, D.C., U. S. Dept. of Commerce, 1974), 83.
- “When free from Exposition commitments, the electrical staff carried out considerable routine testing and even some research in its Palace laboratory. More a novelty resulting from Nutting's gas spectra work than a piece of serious research, however, were the luminous script signs in glass tubing exhibited by the staff at the fair. When excited by electric discharges, the noble (inert) gas in the tubes—it was neon—lit up with a reddish glow.”
- Note 59: “Dr. Nutting's neon signs—two special glass tubes blown by Mr. Sperling in the Bureau shops, one reading "HELIUM," the other "NBS"—resulted from a modification he made in the laboratory instrument known as the Plücker tube and reported in NBS Scientific Paper No. 6, "Some new rectifying effects in conducting gases" (1904). The Plücker tube, like the earlier Geissler tube, was used in the study of spectra of gases and metals. By substituting or disk aluminum electrodes for the thin platinum wire in the tube, Nutting obtained a much steadier and brighter light. Although never made public, the neon phenomenon has long been considered the Bureau's first notable laboratory accomplishment, and the forerunner of modern neon signs and fluorescent lamps. Interview with Dr. William F, Meggers, Aug. 4, 1964.”
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- from the Estate of Edith R. Meggers, thru Howard Kolodny
- 1904
- associated date
- 1904
- ID Number
- EM.334754
- catalog number
- 334754
- accession number
- 314637
- Object Name
- discharge lamp
- neon sign
- Other Terms
- discharge lamp; Lighting Devices
- Physical Description
- wood (part material)
- glass (part material)
- metal (part material)
- Measurements
- overall: 7 3/4 in x 17 1/2 in x 2 3/4 in; 19.685 cm x 44.45 cm x 6.985 cm
- See more items in
- Work and Industry: Electricity
- Energy & Power
- Electric Lamps
- National Museum of American History
- Record ID
- nmah_712661
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a5-5a4b-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
