Hysterical, Historical...Historical, Hysterical

Most Harvard students have, at one time or another, descended into the bowels of the Science Center, either on their way to Lecture Hall E, the official residence of many a Science A Core class, or to the first-year mailroom, the official residence of the unsolicited Visa application. But few students notice the sign that designates Harvard’s rich collection of historical scientific instruments housed in the Science Center’s basement. Perhaps even fewer realize that Harvard’s collection of “hysterical” scientific instruments is also housed in the Science Center basement. Yes, there is allegedly a collection of hysterical, as in funny (ha ha), scientific instruments under the University’s stewardship, at least according to a sign discreetly placed above a doorway in the corridor leading to Lecture Hall E.

(Just in case you were wondering, “hysterical” is not “historical” simply written in a more arcane, high-English style, though that would be such a “Harvard” thing to do, wouldn’t it?)

To get to the bottom of this mysterious signage and, more importantly, to determine how science could ever possibly be funny, FM sought the counsel of Sara J. Schechner ’79, curator of Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments.

Among the instruments that Schechner shows off is a giant wheel suspended by a pair of girders, once used to create static electricity. Alone, this device might not offer much light-hearted entertainment, but it was connected by wire to a model schoolhouse that could be packed with gun powder and detonated. Schechner says this strange apparatus was likely used in 18th-century classrooms to rouse sleepy students drifting off in the back of the class.

Upon being pressed for illustrations of hysterical science, Schechner explains that such a query is a bit misplaced. It is, in fact, the lecture demonstration department across the hall that is responsible for the sign, she believes.

Across the hall in the prep room of the lecture demonstration department, Brian Shaban divulges the true origins of the sign. Shaban, group leader of the Science Center electronics shop, explains that the sign was put up in the 1980s by members of the lecture demonstration department to poke fun at their more staid colleagues across the hall at the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments. “[The sign] was one of those nerd jokes,” he says.

An occasional wayward tourist does catch sight of the sign and wander into the lecture demonstration prep shop, requesting to see “those hysterical scientific instruments,” Shaban says. It’s more than an occasional annoyance, for the staff of the department, though. “We once painted over the sign when we got tired of people asking to see the hysterical instruments,” Shaban bemoans. Apparently, though, nerds rule in the lecture demonstration department—the sign has been restored.

So, while scientific instruments are not, in fact, at all funny, scientists apparently are. Sort of.