Leepaxton

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, Leepaxton!

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Pictures from Pittsburgh museum

Hello.

I saw on the Commons website that you uploaded pictures of Pittsburgh museum, that's the reason why i send you this message.

I'm looking for pictures of the Nimatron, an automata built in 1940. The Nimatron (google translation) should be at the "Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science Building". Are you, in any way, able to go there and take some pictures of it and then upload them to the Commons website ?

I already asked this 2 times without answer here (Pittsburgh portal, village pump). I also leaved a message today here [1]

Regards --Archimëa (talk) 09:49, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Hello Archimëa, I took this picture of the exterior of the Buhl Planetarium, but I've never actually been inside the building yet, but I can try to contact them and see if the Nimatron is inside and if I can go there and get a picture of it. Give me a couple of weeks to check on this, and I'll try to get back to you in a timely manner. Leepaxton (talk) 00:35, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

UPDATE: Unfortunately, as of right now, no one seems to know what happened to the Nimatron, and perhaps it has been misplaced or maybe even worse. I can tell you that the current whereabouts of the Nimatron is a mystery. If I find out any further information about it, I will be sure to tell you as soon as that information is available.

According to The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic, Revised Edition by Richard A. Epstein (1995, 1977), on page 348 it says, "The first such computer was the Nimatron, patented in 1940 by Dr. Edward U. Condon, former director of the National Bureau of Standards. Built by the Westinghouse Electrical Corporation, Nimatron was exhibited at the New York World's Fair. At present it reposes in the scientific collection of the Buhl planetarium in Pittsburgh." But when I emailed their Director of Exhibits, Dennis Bateman, he said, "I'm afraid we have no institutional knowledge or record of the Nimatron being here now at the Buhl Planetarium (within Carnegie Science Center), or at the original Buhl Planetarium. I myself have been with the institution 27 years, and have never heard of this artifact. As a science center, we are not a collections-based museum – we don't have archives or artifact displays, and never have. If the Nimatron ever was at Buhl, it must have been part of a temporary display."

Since Westinghouse made it, I wondered if perhaps it was in the old Westinghouse Air Brake Company General Office Building ("the castle") in Wilmerding, PA, but I just read an article that said that building was recently sold. Another article I found online seems to indicate that the historical Westinghouse items that were in the building were donated to the Heinz History Center, and that is why I emailed their curators and archivists and asked them if they had any information on the Nimatron and its whereabouts. A research assistant named Gale Stevenson at the Heinz History Center's library reference desk sent me a message that said, "We have been working on your question and have no answer. We are able to verify that "Nimatron" was at the [Buhl] Planetarium for 2 months as part of the "Playground of Science" from the 1940 World's Fair, opening Nov 30th 1940. It returned in May, 1941. The next we found, from an article Dec 4, 1952, simply says, "Nimatron, the question man, slunk out of the Planetarium after flubbing a few easy questions" no additional information as to when or where "he" went. We did find a description that it was 8' tall and about 36" square, not something easily overlooked."

So far, that's all the information I've been able to find about the Nimatron. If I'm able to find out anything else, I'll be sure to send that information along to you as soon as possible. Leepaxton (talk) 20:17, 18 November 2016 (UTC)