“Unusual Scientific Machine”

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Spotted on a table of old instruments while wandering around London’s Portobello Road market two Sundays ago.

(Click for a larger view.)

I found the labelling amusing.

Any idea what this might be?

-cvj

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7 Responses to “Unusual Scientific Machine”

  1. Andrii says:
    November 28, 2012 at 11:46 am

    My first instinct was that it is a telescope 🙂

  2. Houston says:
    August 11, 2012 at 8:52 pm

    Not sure about electric motor but looks interested for sure.

    cheers

  3. Clifford says:
    July 25, 2012 at 8:38 am

    Hi SMQ – thanks for your comments! (I restored the original one from the spam bin once you mentioned it was there…. so people have the link.)

    Cheers!

    -cvj

  4. SMQ says:
    July 25, 2012 at 6:01 am

    (seems my original comment is stuck in the spam queue due to a Wikipedia link…)

    Looks like it’s a Barlow (or Barlow’s) Wheel: a simple kind of electric motor used mostly for demonstration purposes. The stellation of the wheel is just so that rotation can be easily observed; a simple disc would function as well.

    –SMQ

  5. Clifford says:
    July 24, 2012 at 8:32 am

    Thank you!

    -cvj

  6. Paolo says:
    July 24, 2012 at 8:14 am

    Portobello

  7. SMQ says:
    July 23, 2012 at 8:04 am

    Looks like it’s a Barlow Wheel: an early electric motor.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barlow%27s_wheel

    –SMQ