I’m James Fenner, a PhD student at the Science Museum researching the models, figures and displays in the former British Small Craft Exhibit. Now that the gallery has closed (after nearly 50 years) I thought I should share with you some of its highlights. I recently told you about the tiny gun-punt model that was on show in the British Small Craft exhibit at the Science Museum, now closed to make way for a major new gallery on communications. Today, […]
From iconic galleries like Exploring Space to award-winning newer additions to the museum like Mathematics: The Winton Gallery our galleries make the museum an inspiring place to explore. We also open temporary exhibitions throughout the year covering a range of topics from science and technology to history and photography.
Champagne corks have been popping at CERN today, with news that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has glimpsed the elusive Higgs boson, or at least something that looks very like it. We’re hoping that one or two of the champagne bottles will find their way into the Science Museum’s collections. Bottles of bubbly might seem a rather strange addition to a museum physics collection, but they’re one way for us to capture news like this morning’s for posterity: ironically, sometimes […]
The tragic loss of a friend during his teenage years exerted an extraordinary influence on Turing’s life, according to Roger Highfield and David Rooney.
This year students from across the UK have been investigating climate change stories from their local area with the help of the Museum’s Climate Science Outreach team.
In the days before synthesisers, open source software and pirated soft-synths, electronic music pioneers had very few resources to create new and exciting sounds…
On 10 October 2011, the Science Museum opened the exhibition Oramics to Electronica: Revealing Histories of Electronic Music.
There was a huge buzz of excitement in the Museum on Saturday afternoon when a crowd of visitors sang ‘happy birthday’ to the world’s best known scientist, Professor Stephen Hawking.
Mention ‘steam engine’ to most people and they immediately think of railway engines. Yet long before railways, stationary steam engines helped power the Industrial Revolution – the years between 1760 and 1830 when Britain became the world’s first industrial nation. Our standard of living, plus the environmental and energy supply issues which threaten us today, grew out of the Industrial Revolution. One of the oldest surviving engines from that time is now in the Science Museum, ‘Old Bess’ built in […]
When I was asked to help develop ideas about early radio broadcasting for a proposed new gallery at the Science Museum I soon realised that I needed help to build up my knowledge quickly. I began with the usual resources – I read some books, looked online and scoured our collection for likely looking objects to explore. While all of these resources could provide me with a technical understanding of the history of radio, I struggled to get a grasp […]
Mark Champkins our Inventor in Residence talks about the inspiration behind the ‘black hole light’ he created for Stephen Hawking’s 70th birthday.
Our Pattern Pod interactive gallery for kids aged 5 to 8 is all about patterns. Patterns that you can see, hear and touch.
Recently, one of my colleagues sent me this link to a small synthesizer hidden in a book. The synthesiser is a bought piece of equipment, but it’s designed to be hacked and modified by whoever uses it and this particular owner probably had a good reason to keep it hidden. Or he just thought it would be fun to stick a synth in an old book. Either way, this quirky instrument instantly reminded me of one of the objects in […]