Science treasures by Microsoft -Mogul for auction - and researchers are enthusiastic
Science treasures by Microsoft -Mogul for auction - and researchers are enthusiastic
science History lovers, check your bank accounts.
Paul Allen . Some of the most valuable pieces will be auctioned live in New York City next month, including the physicist Albert Einstein's letter from 1939 to the then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in which he pointed out that the German foldable uranium had discovered; A space suit that was part of the NASA mission Gemini IV, in which an astronaut 'went' for the first time in space; and correspondence from the pioneer primatologists Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Louis Leakey.
Allen collected the objects-on which scientists and museum curators are tensioned equally-in the course of his life. At the time of his death in 2018, all of assets were estimated at more than $ 20 billion, the result of its development of software for the first personnel computers and the participation of Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975. After leaving Microsoft, everyone ventured to various activities, including the establishment of all-institutes for brain research, artificial intelligence and cell research, as well as financing, as well as financing, as well as financing From spaces hipone - which was the first private ship in 2004 that brought people into space.
"It is a testimony for Paul Allen that he has put together this [collection]," says Randall Berry, a computer engineer at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. "You could see that he really tried to grasp something that he had sometimes experienced himself for posterity."
Nature spoke to researchers and curators about the objects that they are happy about and their hopes of what will happen to them after the auction.
Four-Rotor-Enigma chippering machine
This machine from 1941 was central to the "start of the computer time", says Voula Saridakis, curator of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois. During the Second World War, the Nazis used Enigma machines to encrypt strictly secret military plans. The British mathematician Alan Turing and other code crackers developed a system to crack the cipher with the help of mathematics and logic. This work was crucial for the development of Colossus, the first programmable electronic computer in the world, which was able to decipher another type of encrypted messages and solve more than 100 codes a week for the Allies. "This problem, which could not cope with no human intelligence alone, required the development of computers," says Sam Lemley, curator of Carnegie Mellon University Libraries in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, home to a collection of the history of computer Technology.
Correspondence by Louis Leakey, Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey
These iconic figures in primatology brought human evolution into the spotlight in the 1970s and 1980s. With the support of the Wilkie Brothers Foundation in Illinois, Leakey Goodall and Fossey sent to study wild chimpanzees and gorillas in African wilderness. They shared their research with the Wilkie family through letters and photos and sent tools to the family that used chimpanzees to extract ants from ant hills that Goodall had collected. "The things that chimpanzees did, which we considered only human behavior turned out to be behaviors that we share with our closest relatives," says Karen Strier, primatologist at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. "It made people feel that they are part of nature."
space driver Ed Whites replacement room suit
Even if White 1965 did not hover in this specific suit, says Pablo de León, head of the Human Spaceflight Laboratory at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, that he was probably auctioned at a higher price than the specified maximum bid of $ 120,000, since the suit was actually damaged. "UV light broken down the bladder of the space suit," he says, and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, to which the suit belongs, has taken it out of the exhibition to prevent further damage. The replacement suit should be in excellent condition.
Apple I Personal Computer
Apple I was the first fully assembled, commercially available personnel computer. This special model from 1976 was in the Steve Jobs office, which co -founded the technology company Apple. Before this device came onto the market, hobbyists bought kits and parts to build their own computers. Only about 200 Apple I computers were produced, and many of them were returned when the company released Apple II in 1977 and offered discounts and in -payment to move customers to upgrade. Lemley believes that this computer will probably receive the most competitive requirement at the auction, "not because it is absolutely the most interesting or important object of sales, but because Apple simply has really taken the imagination of many people".
Astronaut James Lovell's handwritten logbook by Apollo 8
The NASA mission Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to flew around the moon. The 1968 mission was not only important for the preparation for the historical Historical Landing of Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon , but also for" the first time seeing the back of the moon with human eyes and seeing the earth as a planet for the first time, "says Saridakis. While the command module of the mission circled the moon, the astronaut William Anders photographed the iconic photo 'Earthrise', and Lovell, who controled the module, made navigation records in this logbook.
find a home
Many of these objects will probably initially get into the hands of private collectors. Museum curators who spoke with Nature say that most artifacts were donated in their collections-about 80%. Some of the rest were bought, and some come from private collectors who borrow. Saridakis says it is unusual that the Griffin Museum of Science and Technology is offering “large, large -scale collection auctions”. Instead, private collectors offer expensive items that they may give museums.
A concern of scientists that historical artifacts could get into private hands is that the objects may not be properly maintained, says Saridakis. Your message to collectors is: "Do your homework" and consult professional conservators to ensure that objects are stored or exhibited correctly to "get them for hundreds of years, if not longer".
lemley says that museums often receive rare texts and archaeological remains than modern objects such as large computers. This is because modern artifacts are "very bulky objects that have to be curated, stored and preserved," he adds, finding that they are made from a variety of materials such as plastic, silicon, lithium and cadmium, for which there are not so many precedent in preservation. "How do you keep these things that have never been built to survive for more than a decade?" asks Lemley.
Whether Allen's valuable possessions end up in private or museum collections is important for string and Berry that the objects are protected and that interested people know where they are. "It would be a shame if these things are simply hidden somewhere where nobody can see them," says Berry.
The auction is held in three parts ; The first two are virtual, starting today and ending on September 12th. The third part will take place on September 10th in the auction house Christie’s in New York City Live.