In Huntington’s small community, tucked in a corner classroom of Smith Hall sits a unique piece of math history. Marshall University is home to the only publicly accessible differential analyzer laboratory, but recently retired professors worry what the future holds for the machine.

To many outside the math field, a differential analyzer may sound like a foreign concept. The machine, large enough to need a custom-made table to display it, was traditionally used in the early 20th century to solve differential equations before calculators or computers had the capability.

To break it down more simply, “A differential equation can describe the behavior of a physical system,” said Bonita Lawrence, the driving force behind the lab. “Consider the movement of a swinging pendulum. The forces on the pendulum, after we give it an initial push, can be described by a differential equation. Solving the differential equation gives us the path of the motion.”

The machine, nicknamed “Art” after Anthony Porter, has called Marshall home since 2009 through efforts made by Lawrence and her husband, Clayton Brooks, after a visit to London in 2004.

“We went to the London Science Museum, … and behind some glass, there was an older differential analyzer – historic; you couldn’t touch it or get to it because it was behind this glass,” Lawrence said.

“When we returned to school, I told a collection of students I didn’t know much about it. I said, ‘Let’s study and see if there’s a machine in the U.S. available for us,’ because I did know it solved differential equations, and that’s my field,” she said.

After returning to Marshall, Lawrence and Brooks wanted to involve students and find a machine to study, giving them a chance to understand the “physical model of a mathematical equation that the machine offers the observer,” according to a 2007 research article published by Marshall’s Department of Mathematics.

When Lawrence returned to the U.S., she discovered a retired computer engineer, Tim Robinson, in California had a differential analyzer right inside his home. Lawrence, Brooks and a team of students flew across the country to meet with Robinson and learn more about his machine.

“About that same time, I get a phone call from the first person to build one in England who was in his 90s. His name was Dr. Arthur Porter. He built a machine similar to Marshall’s at Manchester University in England in 1937,” Lawrence said.

After learning about Porter, the team flew to his residence in North Carolina in the spring of 2005 to gain knowledge from his experience constructing the first differential analyzer with reusable mechanical engineering components.

“We came back, and I went to the president of the university, Mike Farrell, and I said, ‘I’ve met this famous physicist, and I’d like to bring him down to campus.’ He said we’ll have a dinner party for him and his wife,” Lawrence said. “He asked me, ‘What else do you want?’ and I had no idea until that second in time, and I said, ‘I want to build the only publicly accessible differential analyzer in the country.’”

Lawrence did exactly that. Her and her husband’s efforts paid off in 2009 when the team built the first publicly accessible differential analyzer. The group has since become responsible for creating the only two publicly accessible differential analyzers in the U.S. as well as smaller models designed for easier student use.

After years of work at Marshall, Lawrence retired from teaching but with her retirement brought a growing concern about the future of the differential analyzer and whether the university would continue to dedicate space for the large machine.

“It’s getting funded, but there’s a pressure to save money by taking over real estate on campus, and this takes a large room,” Lawrence said, “so the main concern is that it’s going to potentially not be taken care of or not stay here.”

Lawrence said there is a plan in place to eventually pass down responsibility for the machine to her former student and current Marshall University math professor, Tom Cuchta, and the machine has been included in the educational portion of a National Science Foundation grant.

“I will teach him to take care of it. There’s this underlying pressure that this is a big space; I just have a nervous feeling about it,” Lawrence said.

Brooks, however, expressed even more concern about the lab’s future.

“Many times, it feels like we’re going to get the word that the lab room is going to be converted into another high-capacity classroom, a priority of some administrators,” Brooks said.

With such a rich and unique piece of history right in Huntington, Lawrence and Brooks invite students and community members to see the differential analyzer in action, no matter their major, to help preserve the space as the last location the machine will call home.

To schedule a tour of the differential analyzer lab, students or community members can contact Lawrence at [email protected] or Brooks at [email protected]. The differential analyzer is located in Smith Hall 614. 

Abby Ayes can be contacted at [email protected].