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| Index of Secondary Text Terms | Figure 3.1: Network Map of Wind-related Concepts |
| Build Your Own Anemometer | Some Anemometer History |
An anemometer is an instrument used to measure wind speed.
An impressive variety of anemometers have been developed since the fifteenth century, including numerous versions of each of the following five major types:
Some interesting projects involving anemometers include:
If you'd like to try building your own anemometer, one or more of the following web pages are likely to be of interest:
| A. Cup Anemometers |
According to the "Enterprise Ireland Portrait Gallery" (http://www.forbairt.ie/info/fis/no11.html), the first four-cup anemometer was invented in 1850 by Thomas Romney Robinson, who lived from 1793 until 1882. If you're interested, the Enterprise web site also includes a drawing of Dr. Robinson. [For additional information about Dr. Robinson, see:
Similar drawings -- along with a photograph -- can be found at:
Although cup anemometers are widely used, they also have recognized limitations. For example, they have been shown to be too sluggish for accurate measurements of wind gusts
| B. Pressure Tube Anemometers |
According to "The Writer's Almanac" for August 5, 1996 (http://www.almanac.mpr.org/docs/96_08_05.htm):
| "The English meteorologist William Henry Dines, who invented the first instrument to measure both the velocity and direction of wind, the pressure tube anemometer, was born in London [on August 5] in 1855." |
However, it appears that other kinds of anemometers were in use before these inventions by Dr. Robinson and Mr. Dines. For example, http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~et3m-tkkw/history5.html reports that:
| "The use of the kite as an adjunct to meteorological experiment was first extensively developed by the British meteorologist E. D. Archibald in 1833. He succeeded in lifting anemometers on kites, measuring wind speeds at various attitudes. As well as reviving the application of the kite as a meteorological tool, Archibald scored a first in 1887 by taking the first aerial photographs from a kite." |
| C. Deflection Anemometers |
So, the question arises: Who invented the first anemometer, and what type of instrument was it?
Many sources give credit to Leonardo da Vinci for designing the first anemometer. For example, according to http://www.lib.stevens-tech.edu/collections/DAVINCI/inventions/:
| Da Vinci invented an "Anemometer: A device for measuring the force of the wind by reading on the quadrant scale the highest point to which the vane, hinged at the top, is blown. 'The air,' Leonardo wrote, 'moves like a river and carries the clouds with it, just as running water carries all the things that float upon it.'" |
You can see pictures of such a device at http://www.lib.stevens-tech.edu/collections/DAVINCI/inventions/DaVinci_24.gif and http://www.leonet.it/comuni/vincimus/32anem_e.html. The latter site -- which is part of the "on-line" collection of The Leonardo Museum -- includes both a photograph of a da Vinci anemometer and a portion of da Vinci's manuscript for the design of such a device. Also in this collection is an example of another "speed gauge" -- designed by da Vinci -- that could be used for either wind or water.
However, based on some research I've done -- prompted by a question e-mailed to me by Magda for her niece Carol, who is a student in Brazil -- it looks like the earliest recorded example of an anemometer comes to us from the Italian mathematician Leon Battista Alberti. According to W. E. Knowles Middleton, in his extensively researched and referenced Invention of the Meteorological Instruments, published in 1969 by The John Hopkins Press of Baltimore, Maryland:
| "The first anemometer of any kind that we know about was a swinging-plate instrument, and was described and illustrated by Leon Battista Alberti at some time near 1450. It is in a little work called 'On the pleasures of mathematics' [which Alberti is believed to have written sometime between 1450 and 1452. Since] Leonardo da Vinci ... was born in 1452, and there is a passage ... in which he refers to an anemometer by Alberti ... it can scarcely be maintained that Leonardo reinvented it independently" (pp. 182-183). |
A drawing of Alberti's swinging-plate anemometer can also be found in Middleton's book on page 183, where he then continues the story of the development of various deflection-type anemometers by Robert Hooke (~1664), Roger Pickering (1744), and others.
[Information similar to that reported above regarding the history of the anemometer can be found, albeit without citations, at: http://inventors.about.com/education/inventors/library/inventors/blweather.htm .]
| D. Modern Anemometers |
Finally, if you are interested in some more contemporary versions of anemometers, take a look at:
| Build Your Own Anemometer | Information about Wind | Some Anemometer History |
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