By adamg on Fri., 7/21/2023 - 1:17 pm
MIT News details some of the work required to move decades worth of artifacts from the old MIT Museum to its new digs last fall - and some of the surprising things curators found:
Among the surprises was something that the collection database described simply as a brick. “I noticed it because I tried to move it and it was a lot heavier than I thought it would be,†says Pierri. She discovered that the “brick†was part of a graphite rod created for the world's first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, at the University of Chicago in 1942.
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Comments
Hope he didn't hold on too long
By Josh B
Fri, 07/21/2023 - 2:40pm
HBO's Chernobyl flashbacks
*
By Lecil
Fri, 07/21/2023 - 3:32pm
Sorry, weird error when posting my comment!
Was it a beige error page?
By adamg
Sat, 07/22/2023 - 12:12am
And if so, did you try to use an emoji?
Guilty!
By Lecil
Sat, 07/22/2023 - 10:04am
I forget the error page color, it could have been beige. But yes, there was an attempted emoji. I had a sneaking suspicion that might be the problem and so left it out on my next try.
Greatest playground
By Lecil
Fri, 07/21/2023 - 3:32pm
Greatest playground
By Lecil
Fri, 07/21/2023 - 3:32pm
I’m an MIT brat, so I practically grew up running around in basement corridors, crawling on armature windings and playing with punch cards. Helping clean up the old museum sounds like a ball, but I confess, if I came across a particularly heavy brick I’d demand that someone show up with a Geiger counter post haste! LOL!
Yeah.
By jmeltzer
Fri, 07/21/2023 - 3:39pm
My first thought was "demon core".
MY first thought was
By Lecil
Fri, 07/21/2023 - 3:40pm
PUT IT DOWN! PUT IT DOWN!
Graphite is carbon.
By jmeltzer
Fri, 07/21/2023 - 6:30pm
It can't be that heavy. What else is inside that block?
I'm wondering if it's actually lead
By Tim Mc.
Fri, 07/21/2023 - 10:36pm
and just misreported. Lead would perhaps have been used as shielding.
What’s inside that block?
By Bob Leponge
Fri, 07/21/2023 - 11:50pm
What’s inside that block?
Why, sir or madam, that block is just chock full of (checks notes…) Particles! Yep, (pats block approvingly) this here baby can hold so many neutrons!
(You’re right, density of graphite is something like 2.25 or so)
+1 for punch card reference
By anon
Fri, 07/21/2023 - 5:53pm
It will probably need to be explained to anyone under 50. :-)
Will do
By Cleary Squared
Sat, 07/22/2023 - 6:13am
A punch card contained instructions on how to run a large mainframe computer (or in the case of jacquard looms and player pianos, patterns or music, respectively). For computers, it was something as simple as "Hello World" or as complex as a multivariable equation.
Today, computers run off of chips that have hundreds of billions of instructions on it, and replaced punch cards, computer tape, floppy disks, and thumb drives.
Goes back further than that
By SwirlyGrrl
Sat, 07/22/2023 - 9:17pm
Think about he Jacquard loom and the player piano.
Noted
By Cleary Squared
Sun, 07/23/2023 - 3:42pm
Thanks for the update - forgot about those two items! I've updated my post.
Just wait.
By jmeltzer
Sat, 07/22/2023 - 7:04am
If LPs, and now cassettes, are cool again, punch cards have to be next.
Perhaps MIDI on punch card
By Tim Mc.
Sat, 07/22/2023 - 3:21pm
but of course only with gold-plated punch cards "for that warmer, more authentic sound".
WooHoo!
By monkeynaut
Sat, 07/22/2023 - 4:33pm
Congrats to Springfield Nuclear Power Plant's Employee of the Week: The inanimate carbon rod!
Rod used to be reasonably
By Rob
Sun, 07/23/2023 - 12:30am
Rod used to be reasonably animate - until 'the incident'.
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