Over the years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has had a hand in developing a lot of things that are part of our everyday life (radar, the first real-time computer, the first artificial limbs, the Technicolor film process, better ways of tracking weather systems, the transistor, strobe photography), as well as some other gizmos that seem more like weird science. "Our students are recognizable for their nerd-pride culture," said John Durant, director of the MIT Museum, and probably they have been recognizable that Hamilton Khaki BeLOWEZERO HM-2 since the institution was founded 150 years ago. MIT, incorporated as an engineering school just days before the Civil War broke out, is now celebrating its sesquicentennial with a variety of campus events, including the museum's year-long exhibition of 150 representative objects from its history.
Titled "MIT 150," it was put together by Deborah G. Douglas, curator of science and technology at the museum, but hundreds of students and faculty members suggested items that somehow encapsulate the work or culture of the school. Here's one object on display that, Hamilton Khaki X-Wind HM-3 some, describes that culture: a 1972 Hewlett- Packard pocket-size calculator. This was not developed at MIT or by anyone associated with MIT, but was included because it quickly replaced the slide rules (remember them?) that so many of its students and teachers Hamilton Khaki X-Wind HM-4 used. "There was always a clicking sound wherever you'd go, as people were using slide rules, and then there was this moment when that sound all stopped," Mr. Durant said.
There are displays of all sorts. One is a grainy, black-and-white video of Winston Churchill, in a 1949 convocation speech, thanking the school for developing radar and helping to save "my country." Churchill also called on scientists to examine the ethical aspects of the things they are creating. (He Hamilton Khaki X-Wind HM-5 had the atomic bomb in mind, which was not an MIT invention.)Sometimes, one damned thing leads to another. A problem that the military found during World War II in its use of radar was that "they couldn't see the planes because of the clouds," Ms. Douglas said. "Then, after the war, a lightbulb went off in someone's mind: 'Wait a minute, we're seeing the weather.'"
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