Stories from the stores

Blame the Satellite

June 30th, 2010 | by | astronomy, communication

Jun
30

Blame the manager, the ref, the team… I blame the satellite. Before the space age and communications satellites there was no live TV coverage of the World Cup and we could all get on with our work and jobs around the house and garden.

Robomo lawnmowing machine, 1966

Robomo lawnmowing machine, 1966 (Science Museum/Science & Society)

It was just another international sporting event covered by radio, recorded television reports and on the back pages of the newspapers. There was less tension, less hype and, to put it bluntly, less interest. Oh, how times have changed.

Master Football Game, 1945-60

With no live World Cup football on TV until the 1960s slot machines like this Master Football Game were popular, 1945-60 (Science Museum/Science & Society)

Telstar relayed the very first TV pictures by satellite in 1962. The event was a technological triumph, a harbinger of near-real time global culture and, not least, the inspiration for one of the most distinctive pop records ever made.

First live TV transmission by the Telstar 1 satellite, 1962

Fred Kappel of AT&T speaks to a trans-Atlantic audience during the first live TV transmission by the Telstar 1 satellite, 1962

Telstar 1 Satellite (replica), 1962

Telstar 1 Satellite (replica), 1962 (Science Museum/Science & Society)

Telstar, though, occupied an orbit that made continuous broadcast impossible. After a while the satellite would dip below the horizon and the signal it was relaying would be lost.

The development of more powerful space rockets allowed satellites to be launched to the far higher geostationary belt around the Earth’s equator. At an altitude of 36,000m, the satellites’ orbital rates match that of the Earth’s rotation so ‘anchoring’ them at fixed points above the horizon.

Today’s World Cup is being brought to our homes by a fleet of such communications satellitest that collect and distribute the action from South Africa to countries around the world.

BSkyB satellite receiving antenna

BSkyB satellite receiving antenna, 2010 (Doug Millard).

 This can then be beamed back up to a set of Direct Broadcast Satellites (DBS), also occupying the geostationary orbit, which relay them down to the satellite dishes that adorn our walls and roofs.

It is the DBS industry that has invested in the English football league and especially the Premiership, so helping make it the most successful domestic football league in the world. But that’s still no guarantor of success on the pitch…

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Killer snakes, steel knots and a silver laboratory

June 29th, 2010 | by | engineering, materials

Jun
29

In my last post I showed you a section of gun barrel flattened cold by a steam hammer. Spectacular demonstrations of engineering muscle have often yielded cool Science Museum exhibits, and I thought you might like to see another one on show in our Making the Modern World gallery:

Knot of steel, 1885 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

This is a knot, tied cold, formed by a pair of inch-diameter rods of steel. It was made in 1885 at the Steel Company of Scotland, Glasgow, and comes from a collection of 3,700 metallurgical specimens put together by Dr John Percy FRS. We bought the collection upon Percy’s death in 1889.

John Percy, English metallurgist, 1859 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Percy was the inaugural Professor of Metallurgy at the School of Mines, the first government-backed technical higher education establishment in the UK, and taught there from 1851 to 1879. Here’s his laboratory:

John Percy's metallurgical laboratory, 1877 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Percy had made a name for himself in the 1840s for a new method of extracting silver from ore, which went into widespread use. He went on to develop new ways to make steel, improving Bessemer’s process.

His collection was eclectic, to say the least. While reading through the files in order to write this blogpost, I saw that another of the items in his collection was a box of boa constrictor dung, used as a fuel for smelting. Ingenious…

The School of Mines ended up as part of the Department of Materials at Imperial College, next door to the Science Museum. You can read the history of the school in a super booklet written by Imperial’s wonderful archivist, Anne Barrett.

And if you’re going there to study this autumn, do drop by and see us.

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Space and Ti(e)me

June 22nd, 2010 | by | space, time

Jun
22

It’s been an astronomical few days: The Astronomer Royal and President of the Royal Society appeared on the radio to talk about all the big scientific truths that, apparently, ‘we’ll never know’, we celebrated the Summer Solstice, we saw Dr Who at Stonehenge, and - last Thursday - the Director of the Taipei Astronomical Museum came to the Science Museum.

As a parting gift he presented me with a tie depicting the Sun and planets. I had come to work in suit and open collar shirt so I was able to don it immediately much to his delight.

Ties (left to right) Japanese Space Agency, HOTOL project, Hubble Space Telescope, Taipei Astronomical Museum, European Space Agency, Huygens mission

Ties (left to right) Japanese Space Agency, HOTOL project, Hubble Space Telescope, Taipei Astronomical Museum, European Space Agency, Huygens mission (Doug Millard, 2010)

I’ve acquired several space ties over the years and worn all of them but, like other items recently discussed on this blog, there is also good reason for adding them to the Museum’s collections.

Wearing or giving a tie makes a social statement. Many a historian of science argues that we can understand the scientific process better by studying the social world of the scientist, so why shouldn’t this include studies of their tie-wearing world?

The tie in 21st century science tends to be reserved for official occasions with most practising scientists working in open-neck shirts and tops. Wearing a ready-made noose in the laboratory or workshop might not be the best plan…

Scientist sporting tie (and pipe), 1970

Scientist sporting tie (and pipe), 1970 (Science Museum/Science & Society)

I discovered we do already have some neckties in the Collections including those worn by staff members of the Royal Train, one made especially to mark the third Millennium which is adorned with stars, space rockets and a quote from Einstein: (‘I never think of the future. It comes soon enough’).

Millennium Tie with Einstein Quote

Millennium Tie with Einstein Quote (Science Museum/Science & Society)

Maybe we should acquire one of Dr Who’s bow ties too, despite the Astronomer Royal reminding us that the time machine will likely remain forever fiction.

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A quacking tale

June 21st, 2010 | by | oceanography, quirky

Jun
21

Recently, my colleague David mentioned that we’re planning a major history of science gallery as part of our master plan. It’s got us thinking about some of our favourite objects in the collections. Here’s one of my all-time tops:

'The First Years' plastic duck, c.1992

Yes, it’s a toy duck. But not just any old toy duck. It’s part of a consignment of plastic toys lost from a container ship in the North Pacific during high storms on January 10, 1992. Around 29,000 toys spilled from the container and have been making a swim for it ever since, to the shores of Alaska, surviving ice in the Bering Straits, and heading into the North Atlantic.

Oceanographers Curtis Ebbesmeyer and James Ingraham have enlisted the help of beachcombers worldwide to track where the toys wash up. By following the mighty ducks and their floating friends, they can refine their models of ocean surface currents. It’s a great illustration of how scientists can come up with imaginative solutions to problems, and a charming example of members of the public working in tandem with scientists. Oceanographers track all sorts of flotsam – there’s also a flotilla of trainers bobbing about out there - but the storytelling potential of rubber duckies floating around the world’s biggest bathtub makes this case particularly appealing. You can find out more about Curtis and the ducks in his book.

The yellow ducks were accompanied by blue turtles, green frogs and red beavers who've since faded to white (Science Museum).

These toys are part of the first wave to be washed ashore – large numbers landed in Sitka, Alaska, ten months after the spill. We acquired these toys in 2005, following a response to posts we put on Sitka community websites under the heading ’Science Museum, London, looking for a duck!’  We decided they should travel to the Museum in a box, by air, rather than swimming for it…

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Arms, legs and ex-servicemen

June 17th, 2010 | by | medicine

Jun
17

Of all our many and varied medical objects in storage, it’s the artificial limbs that visitors often find the most striking. Occupying two whole rooms, the majority were acquired from Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton, which opened 95 years ago this month.

Artificial limbs

Limbs from Queen Mary's Hospital in our London store (Stewart Emmens)

The date is significant. By 1915, the trickle of amputees shipped home to Britain in the early weeks of the First World War was becoming a torrent. The authorities, who were obliged to provide them with artificial limbs, were soon overwhelmed. The new hospital was a response to this crisis.

Limb fitting at Queen Mary's

Limb fitting at Queen Mary's Hospital, c1916-1918 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

As the War progressed, St Mary’s became the main focus of limb production and fitting in the UK. A specialist service it retains to this day.

This collection contains examples from across the 20th century, but those relating to the two World Wars form the largest groups. Retained by the hospital when veterans were issued new prostheses, they have some of the most intriguing back stories.

Artificial leg

Artificial leg with extensive 'home repairs' (Science Museum)

Perhaps the strangest is this limb, worn for over 40 years by one ex-soldier. Made of fibre and intended only as temporary measure, its owner didn’t return Queen Mary’s for his proper limb-fitting. He preferred to prolong this pylon leg’s life – through occasional applications of glue, wire mesh…..and cement. It now weighs over 20 kg. Amazingly for most of that 40 years he worked as a roof thatcher and tiler.

Artificial leg

Artificial leg made for a prisoner of war, c.1943 (Science Museum)

More subtly ingenious is this limb, handed in by a survivor of a Japanese prisoner of war camp. One of several made by fellow captive and surgeon Julian Taylor, it’s made from metal salvaged from a crashed aircraft. As an added touch for the British owner, who’d have worn little more than shorts in the sweltering heat, it is – of course – painted pink.

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