Does it create sparks as the arm at the top spins round?
Is it the experiment where amino acids were formed from simple gases like ammonia,carbon dioxide, water vapour when they tried to model the early earths atmosphere?
Looks like an electron tube (circuit filament in a vacuum tube) to me, but I think it could be one of those Miller type experiments as mentioned.
That's totally got to be Enrico Fermi!!!!!!!!!
I'm gonna guess it's something high voltage, low atmosphere (vacuum), and the tip is some sort of sample (looks like mercury to me, not sure). I'm gonna guess it's to vaporize a liquid sample by voltage. I'm gonna hazard that that is for inserting the vaporized sample into a Mass Spectrophotomer. Useful for ionizing a biological macromolecule.
Or I guess it's actually an "ion trap" for MS.
microwave transmitter ? like in a mobile phone.
some kind of electricity meter?
Cathode ray tube?
Just to give a hint: This isn't just some obscure experiment (well, okay, back then it was), but one of the most important inventions in the last 50 years
Laser.
Dunno who it is though.
Open floor if I'm right.