Sector

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A sector is an instrument for solving computations which use the rules of proportion. This brass example was made in Paris in the 17th century, probably by Michael Butterfield, an Englishman who worked in Paris from around 1677 to 1724.

This side of the sector is inscribed 'Butterfield A Paris'. It has a line of chords, line of solids, metals, and 'poids des boules', or weight of shot, for use in artillery calculations.

Butterfield's workshop appears to have been the most successful in the last quarter of the 17th century in Paris, rivalled only by that of Nicholas Bion which emerged in the 1690s.

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• Online ID: 000-100-104-198-C
• Image Rights Holder: National Museums Scotland
• Project: National Museums Scotland
  Project description   View all records in project
• Ref: National Museums Scotland  T.1924.257
• Date: 17th century
  
• Material: Brass
  
• Dimensions: 13.25" L x 0.63" W
  
• What:
• Subject: 19. MATHEMATICS (Departmental Classification)
  
• Who: Butterfield, Paris (Sundial maker)
  
• Where: France, Paris
  
• Event:
• Description: Seventeenth century brass sector made by Butterfield, Paris
  
• References:
  • For Butterfield, see Turner, Anthony, Mathematical instrument-making in early modern Paris' in Fox, Robert & Turner, Anthony, Luxury Trades and Consumerism in Ancien Regime Paris'. Aldershot: 1998, pp 78-83, 95-6 
  • Hambly, Maya. Drawing Instruments 1580-1980. London: 1988, pp 134-6 
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