Browse results
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Threading through history: the vertical transmission of Davy, Faraday and Tyndall’s lecture demonstration practices
How can physical actions of performance be passed on through generations? This article highlights possible routes of transmission from lecture-demonstrations of nineteenth-century scientists at the Royal Institution to Science Museum Guide Lecturers in the 1950s, on to the performance practices of contemporary Explainers.
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Giovanni Canestrini’s models of Leonardo da Vinci’s friction experiments
Among the many mechanical models based on Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings, several purport to illustrate his experiments on friction. This article traces the history of these models and examines them critically in the light of recent research into Leonardo’s studies of friction.
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Pilgrimages to the museums of the new age: appropriating European industrial museums in New York City (1927–1937)
This article analyses the changing perceptions of European industrial museums as expressed in the reports written by the curators, directors and trustees of the New York Museum of Science and Industry between 1927 and 1937.
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The Hugh Davies Collection: live electronic music and self-built electro-acoustic musical instruments, 1967–1975
The author describes and contextualises the Hugh Davies Collection (HDC) – a collection of self-built electro-acoustic musical instruments and other electronic sound apparatus formerly owned by the English experimental musician, instrument inventor, and live electronic music pioneer Hugh Davies (1943–2005).
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Capturing the song of the nightingale
An article exploring the effects of the first ever broadcast from a natural location made by the British Broadcasting Company – the famous Nightingale broadcast of 19 May 1924, and the role of the innovative microphone that made it possible.
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da Vinci Quincentenary Exhibition of 1952
This article tells the story of the Science Museum’s role in an exhibition at the Royal Academy, London, in 1952, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the birth of Leonardo da Vinci, and in particular in displaying mechanical models based on Leonardo’s drawings.
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The birth of a collection in Milan: from the Leonardo Exhibition of 1939 to the opening of the National Museum of Science and Technology in 1953
The article analyses the history of the collection of Leonardo da Vinci historical models, focusing on two episodes: the 1939 Leonardo Exhibition where a first group of models was created; and the 1952 celebrations, when a new set of models was built to be displayed in the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnica, which opened the following year.
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A sustainable storage solution for the Science Museum Group
An innovative storage building made from low-carbon, natural hygroscopic materials requiring minimal energy to achieve control of relative humidity to museum standards was built to house collections for the Science Museum Group.
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Adapting to the emergence of the automobile: a case study of Manchester coachbuilder Joseph Cockshoot and Co. 1896–1939
This paper will analyse the relationship between the horse-drawn and the motorised vehicle in the UK. It argues that the emergence of the automobile was not a simple matter of technological progress, but involved complex relationships between manufacturers, coachbuilders and customers.
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A tale of two telegraphs: Cooke and Wheatstone’s differing visions of electric telegraphy
William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone were two of the most recognised figures behind the Victorian telegraph. Their conflicting visions of telegraphy provoked an acrimonious dispute between them. The paper explores this dispute’s impact on the development of telegraphic instruments.