'Awe and wonder' of mechanisms

Cornell Provost Biddy Martin and William Weiblen, former president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), display a commemorative plaque designating Cornell's Reuleaux collection of 19th-century mechanical models as a Historical Mechanical Engineering Landmark. In a Dec. 2 ceremony in Duffield Hall's Baum Atrium, where the world's largest collection of 19th-century kinematic mechanisms is displayed, Martin accepted the ASME plaque with the observation that she regarded the working models with "childish awe and wonder." The 230 iron and brass models in the Reuleax Collection of Kinematic Mechanisms, still used to teach the principles of machines and robotics, were created by German engineer and educator Franz Reuleaux and purchased in 1882 by Cornell's first president, Andrew Dickson White. (Kinematics is the study of geometry of motion.) The ASME designation also pays tribute to the intertwined history of Cornell and the society. Cornell professor Robert Thurston was ASME's first president and three other Cornell faculty members were early presidents of the society, which next year celebrates its 125th anniversary. Charles Harrington