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Through the lens of a space tourist
As the first paying customer to fly to the ISS, Dennis Tito’s journey can be seen as a historic turning point within the history of space travel following the end of the Space Race and inaugurating the space programme as a new marketplace.
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The Art and Science of Acoustic Recording: Re-enacting Arthur Nikisch and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s landmark 1913 recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
In 2014, at the Royal College of Music, an orchestra recorded on to wax discs using a horn and mechanical technology from the acoustic era of sound recording. This article examines the processes, practices and outcomes of the sessions and reflects on the musicians’ experiences.
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The Cosmonauts challenge
This paper investigates how the development of new contacts and partnerships has contributed not only to the loan of material of historic significance to the Science Museum’s exhibition, but more broadly changes perceptions about Russia and its space programme in the western world.
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‘The whole exhibition becomes the stage…’ – a journey through time by children for children as a new approach to peer learning
This paper presents an account of a project that the Museum of Electricity and Life implemented to provide educationally disadvantaged children with opportunities to participate in cultural life and help them to develop new competences. The children accompanied their peer group as travel guides through the history of electricity. In the process they slipped into different roles and imparted their knowledge through short theatrical performances.
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Understanding storm surges in the North Sea: Ishiguro’s electronic modelling machine
An introduction to one of the star objects in Mathematics: The Winton Gallery, an electronic storm surge modelling machine.
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Technologies of Romance: Valentine from a Telegraph Clerk ♂ to a Telegraph Clerk ♀: the material culture and standards of early electrical telegraphy
This paper explores the material culture, electrical standards, and romance of early cable telegraphy as described in renowned physicist James Clerk Maxwell’s slightly tongue-in-cheek 1860 poem 'Valentine from A Telegraph Clerk ♂ to a Telegraph Clerk ♀'.
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Visualising electricity demand: use and users of a 3D chart from the 1950s
A 3D chart of electricity demand in Manchester, 1951–54, is a tangible record of past practice, both of the electricity supply industry and its consumers. We offer a close inspection of the object, and generate ideas about the chart’s use and users.
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Watt’s workshop: craft and philosophy in the Science Museum
A close examination of James’ Watt’s workshop, preserved in the Science Museum’s collections since 1924 and redisplayed in 2012, suggests a richer, more nuanced interpretation of his contribution to Britain’s Industrial Enlightenment as both philosopher and practical maker.
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Wounded – an exhibition out of time
Calling on the Science Museum’s First World War exhibition Wounded: Conflict, Casualties and Care, this article outlines the challenges of curating a coherent display within such a vast context. It also explores how the narrative and interpretive approaches taken were influenced by an earlier, unrealised proposal – one whose bold concept was reflected in the rewarding and sometimes unexpected qualities that emerged in the final exhibition.
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Writing sound with a human ear: reconstructing Bell and Blake’s 1874 ear phonautograph
This article describes the process and outcomes of a research project that involved reconstructing Alexander Graham Bell and Clarence J Blake’s ear phonautograph, an 1874 curiosity that used an excised human middle ear to visually inscribe sound waves.