How about this for a sound business proposition? You spend £25 million excavating a 1‑kilometre tunnel and a cavern the size of the Royal Albert Hall deep inside a solid-rock mountain. At the same time you create an artificial reservoir with the capacity of 4000 Olympic swimming pools way up high on a barren Scottish mountainside. Then you install four giant turbines inside the mountain so that the water from the reservoir can flow through and generate electricity for the national […]
The finalists have been announced for engineering’s answer to the Oscars: the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award. Here, the Chair of Judges and leading nuclear engineer, Dame Sue Ion DBE FREng, describes the three finalists for 2015 and the importance of engineering innovation in society.
Chancellor George Osborne today visited the Science Museum with Sir James Dyson who announced plans to create the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London, basing it in the museum’s Post Office building.
Held in the conference centre at the National Railway Museum, the Science Museum Group’s Annual General Meeting gave staff an opportunity to share the ambitious strategic plans being shaped at the Group’s sites around the country and, in Crossrail Chairman Terry Morgan’s presentation, to hear how Europe’s largest construction project is being kept on time and on budget. Alongside Mr Morgan, the other highlight of the day was the formal introduction to the Group of our new Chairman, Dame Mary Archer.
The visionary chemical engineer Dr Robert Langer, whose work on drug delivery systems has benefited millions of patients, has today won Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.
A long black metal tube, slightly tapered and almost 9-foot-long lay on a row of filing cabinets at Blythe House, the Science Museum’s storage facility. The object was pointed out by John Liffen, the Museum’s Curator of Communications, who guided me during a research visit of the collections in 2008. It was all that remained of a mighty horn loudspeaker that was demonstrated in the Museum during the 1930s, John explained. A demolition accident had almost totally destroyed it in […]
Martyn Harris, cyclist and entrepreneur, looks at how 3D printing inspired him to launch a new business. See more examples of 3D Printing in our 3D: Printing the future exhibition. My two lifelong passions are cycling and engineering. As a child I could regularly be found either riding my bike or constructing some new contraption out of lego. I started racing mountain bikes at the age of 13 and after leaving school, embarked on a four year apprenticeship to become a […]
Steph Millard in the exhibitions team looks back over 100 years of stainless steel, first cast in August 1913 by Harry Brearley. Today’s journey into work sets me thinking. Looking at the queue of cars ahead with their stainless steel exhaust systems I repeatedly glance at my wristwatch – with its stainless steel back – to check I won’t be late. To my right, the Canary Wharf tower – with its 370,000 square feet of stainless steel cladding – glints majestically in […]
The Science Museum’s curator of time, David Rooney, reflects on the ‘Clock of the Long Now’, a prototype of which is on show in the museum’s Making the Modern World gallery.
Jennifer Bainbridge, Conservator on the new Information Age gallery, writes about the conservation of Morse code tapes from the SS Great Eastern, 1865, a ship which undertook the laying of transatlantic telegraph cable. John Liffen, Curator of Communication, provides details of transcription. As one of the conservators working on the new Information Age gallery, opening in September 2014, I handle, document and carry out treatments on objects destined for display. Working so closely with artifacts means I am often in the lucky position […]
Seventy years ago, in the early hours of the 17 May 1943, 8 Lancaster bombers flew back to RAF Scampton and into the history books as part of the daring Dambusters raid.
Viridity, a team of young engineers from Newstead Wood School, are taking part in our High Performance festival this weekend. This guest blog post has been written by the Viridity team.