The physics collection is currently the largest constituent of UTSIC’s direct holdings. Dating from the 1870s through to the present day, the collection is largely comprised of apparatus used in laboratory teaching in the Department of Physics. The majority of the objects, broadly speaking, date from 1870 through 1930, with a preponderance of objects clustered between 1906 and 1925, when the Department experienced a rapid growth in undergraduate instruction. In addition, there are a small number of objects related to research in the Department, including items related to J. C. McLennan’s spectroscopic and low-temperature work, and more recent items collected directly from decommissioned labs, such as Accelerated Mass Spectrometer project, IsoTrace.
This collection contains many striking artifacts, including a large number of acoustical instruments made by Parisian instrument maker Rudolph Koenig (which forms a sub-collection among the physics objects), and items constructed by Canadian astronomer J.S. Plaskett in his capacity as Department of Physics mechanician 1890-1903.
Contact: Erich Weidenhammer, Curator, UTSIC (erich.weidenhammer@utoronto.ca)