Stories from the stores

This week in 1977, astronomers discovered faint rings around Uranus. Or did they? It’s just possible that William Herschel beat them to it by almost 200 years. Herschel’s notes for February 22, 1789 say ‘A ring was suspected’. It was assumed he was mistaken, but Dr Stuart Eves, inspired by one of our objects, has a theory that could explain Herschel’s observations.

Herschel in 1794. (Credit: Science Museum / Science & Society)

A few years ago, Stuart visited our Blythe House store to see this orrery, or planetary model – the only surviving one of this design.

Orrery made by John Fidler to a design by William Pearson, 1813-22 (Credit: Science Museum / Science & Society)

It shows Uranus with six moons. Herschel discovered the innermost two, Titania and Oberon, in 1787. By 1794 he had reported four additional satellites. However, no other astronomer managed to see them and observations in the 1850s showed Herschel was mistaken and may have been looking at background stars near the planet.

Wanting to know more about this, Stuart studied Herschel’s papers, which is where he found the 1789 reference to the ring, and also one from 1792 referring to ’a very faint ray, like a ring crossing the planet, over the centre’.

So if Herschel did see a ring, how come nobody else managed to until 1977? Well, Stuart’s theory is that if this ring behaves like Saturn’s rings then it might be getting darker and more diffuse, making it harder to see. Plus, the ring is only visible at certain alignments.

Herschel's 20ft telescope (Credit: Science Museum / Science & Society)

But could Herschel really have seen a ring using his 20ft telescope, a giant of the time but diminutive by today’s standards? Well, he built the best telescopes of his era, and was a meticulous observer. So maybe, just maybe… We’ll never know for sure, but it shows what a visit to our stores can trigger!

A 1998 Hubble Space Telescope image of the rings of Uranus (Credit: NASA / Science & Society)

I was walking up Kingsway at the weekend, and was stopped in my tracks by the most striking sculpture I’ve seen in a long time:

'Square the Block', Richard Wilson, Kingsway (David Rooney)

Square the Block, by internationally-renowned sculptor Richard Wilson RA, is a five-storey addition to a chamfered corner of a London School of Economics building.

I must admit to being a huge fan of Wilson’s work. I first encountered it in 2004, when I visited the Saatchi collection at London’s County Hall. One exhibit was Wilson’s 20:50, a room full of sump oil, which I found enchanting.

Wilson is also responsible for an artwork that’s closer to (my) home. Slice of Reality is a section of ship planted on the beach off the Greenwich peninsula, near the O2 (what used to be the Millennium Dome).

'Slice of Reality', Richard Wilson, Greenwich (David Rooney)

To make the sculpture, Wilson bought an old sand-dredger called Arco Trent, built in Devon in 1971, and had it chopped up in a shipyard on the River Tees before fixing it to the Greenwich beach.

I met Wilson on board the ship a couple of years ago, when he opened it for London Open House (a weekend when buildings that are normally off-limits throw open their doors to the public). He told me it is a perfect site for drawing and thinking, and I must say the views from its sun-drenched superstructure were magnificent.

We’ve got a handful of dredger models on show at the Science Museum, including Prins der Nederlanden, built three years before Arco Trent:

Model of 'Prins der Nederlanden', 1968 (detail, David Rooney, March 2010)

Extra points for anyone who can find the other two (much older) model dredgers in the gallery…

I was in Cambridge last week for a couple of meetings. It’s a glorious city. The buildings reek of history and tradition, the streets are filled with bright folk lost in dreamy thought and the river carries its languorous cargo of students and tourists in pole-driven punts, as depicted in this poster from the NRM collection:

'St John's, Cambridge' railway poster (NRM / Pictorial Collection / Science & Society)

And then there’s the bicycles. Cambridge is teeming with them, and whilst I’m all for cycle-friendly streets, I need eyes in the back of my head when I want to cross the road…

Most Cambridge bikes are pretty ordinary, but occasionally something special appears. Here’s a great picture of the ‘Cambridge Duad’ in 1895:

'The Cambridge Duad', Cambridge University, 1895 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Look closely at the eighteen-year-old at the front. He’s Charles Rolls, keen cyclist and founder (with Henry Royce) of Rolls-Royce.

Here he is again that year, this time on a more conventional two-seat tandem:

Rolls and Legard riding a tandem, Cambridge University, 1895 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

These wonderful pictures are from an album put together by Rolls that’s now in our Library and Archives collection, available to view by appointment at our Swindon site.

Half a century on, the technology seems barely to have changed. We’ve a handful of tandems in our historic bikes collection, including this lightweight touring model by Rensch from 1948:

Tandem bicycle, 1948 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

For Charles Rolls, though, history was to be cut tragically short. Besides his cycling and motoring, he was also a pioneering aviator. In 1910, at an air tournament at Bournemouth, Rolls was killed performing a complex aerial manoeuvre. He was just 32.

My favourite part of curatorial work is adding new objects to the collections. Aside from the warm fuzzy glow of knowing that something I’ve acquired will be stumbled upon by future generations of curators, visitors and researchers, it’s always an opportunity to find out something new and meet interesting people. 

Recently, I visited the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory for a whistle-stop tour. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m working on a project to bring our physics collections up to date, and RAL is a great place to start. RAL’s scientists and engineers are involved in projects worldwide, and the on-site facilities are used for a huge range of applications, from studying photosynthesis to analysing timbers from the Mary Rose. 

First stop was the giant Vulcan laser, one of the world’s most powerful. The whole thing is too big to photograph but you can take a virtual tour here. 

Keeping an eye on things in Vulcan's control room (Credit: Alison Boyle)

Then on to the Diamond Light Source. This is a synchrotron, accelerating electrons to generate high-intensity light for use in experiments. This animation explains how it works. Diamond’s electron storage ring is more than 500m around – here’s a bit of it. 

This photo was taken standing on top of Diamond's electron storage ring, the white structure curving off in the distance. The light beams are directed to experiment rooms inside the yellow structures. Credit: Alison Boyle

Next stop was the Particle Physics Department, finding out about RAL’s involvement in the Large Hadron Collider’s CMS experiment. More about the LHC in a few weeks, as I’m off to CERN shortly. 

And finally on to ISIS, an accelerator which generates pulses of neutrons and muons to explore materials in detail. ISIS is even bigger than Diamond – here’s part of one of the halls. 

Inside one of the ISIS target halls. Protons are accelerated through the white structure and slam into a target inside the blue structure, generating muons and neutrons for experiments. Credit: Alison Boyle.

During the tour, my magpie-like curator’s eye noticed a few bits and pieces of interest to the museum, so if I can persuade their owners to part with them, you may be seeing them in our collections soon.  Thanks to Katy, Graeme, Cristina, Laura, Jen, Bruce and Chris for a great day!

You may have been following my recent posts on Britain’s submarine history. One thing that’s emerged has been the important role of Barrow-in-Furness in transport history.

The Vickers company, now part of BAE Systems, made most of Britain’s submarine fleet at their Barrow yard, and BAE are manufacturing our latest subs there now.

But Barrow was a transport town long before the submarines. In the mid-nineteenth century, Barrow became a centre for steel-making, as iron ore mined in the nearby Lake District was brought to the town by rail.

Experimental Bessemer converter, 1865 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

This device, a prototype Bessemer converter, was made at the Barrow Haematite Ironworks in 1865, and is on show at the Science Museum. Large-scale converters that followed enabled steel to be made in vast quantities.

This plentiful local steel supply, coupled with Barrow’s sheltered waterside, made the town an ideal place to build ships, and Barrow yards churned out countless vessels before turning towards submarines in 1900.

The railway line that transported the iron ore which enabled this whole industry to thrive was a significant network in its own right.

Barrow railway station, 1930 (NRM / Science & Society)

We’ve got lots of Furness Railway items in the National Railway Museum collections, including ‘Coppernob’, on show in the NRM Station Hall…

'Coppernob' locomotive for Furness Railway, 1846 (NRM / Science & Society)

…paintings in the art collection…

Oil painting of a train on the Furness Railway, 1910 (NRM / Pictorial Collection / Science & Society)

…and delightful archive items.

Furness Railway timetable, 1915 (NRM / Science & Society)

Today, parts of the Furness Railway are still used by the national rail network, including the line to Barrow. It’s an area with a long and enduring history.

Last time, I related the sad story of the demise of HMS Trafalgar, who had her nuclear reactor shut down a few weeks ago prior to retirement.

In 1993, Trafalgar was affiliated with the north-west town of Lancaster, just across Morecambe Bay from Barrow-in-Furness where many naval submarines are built. Now the boat has been decommissioned, the affiliation has come to an end, and the tip of Morecambe’s Stone Jetty is to be renamed ‘Trafalgar Point’ in the boat’s honour.

Apparently, council officials had considered naming a plaza, rather than a jetty, but realised that there was already a rather more famous Trafalgar Square. This leads me neatly to some wonderfully atmospheric photos of the London landmark in the collection of the National Media Museum:

Trafalgar Square, c.1890 (NMeM / Science & Society)

London’s Trafalgar Square has been a traffic hot-spot for more than a century…

'Held Up, Trafalgar Square', 1923 (NMeM / Royal Photographic Society / Science & Society)

…although the air quality has certainly improved since the early days.

Hansom cab in Trafalgar Square, c.1898 (NMeM / Royal Photographic Society / Science & Society)

Trafalgar Square is often at the heart of demonstrations, marches and rallies. One event, held in the square in Easter 1966, was captured in another of the NMeM’s photographs: a march by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament…

CND Easter March, Trafalgar Square, 1966 (NMeM / Tony Ray-Jones / Science & Society)

Fifteen years later, the nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarine Trafalgar was launched…

The photographic collections of the National Media Museum (part of the National Museum of Science and Industry) are truly remarkable. You can explore some of their holdings here if you can’t visit in person.

Earlier, I told you about HMS Astute, the Royal Navy’s latest nuclear-powered submarine, due to be handed over by the builders later this year.

She’s the second naval submarine with that name, the first being launched in 1944 as part of the Amphion-class of boats. We’ve this model of HMS Amphion herself on show in our Shipping gallery:

Model of HMS 'Amphion', 1944 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Another boat in the series was HMS Alliance. To experience life on board a submarine, head for the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport, where Alliance is open to the public. I had an excellent guided tour from a retired submariner on my last visit.

You can also climb on board the Royal Navy’s first ever submarine, ordered 110 years ago. The Holland 1, UK-built to American designs, has been fully restored and well worth a visit.

'Holland'-class submarine, 1901 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Visiting them really brings home how cramped life on board a submarine must be.

Sailors in a British submarine, 1914-18 (NMeM / Daily Herald Archive / Science & Society)

The latest nuclear boats are bigger, though, as they’ve plenty of power. The latest Astute will replace HMS Trafalgar, now retiring after more than a quarter-century of service. Her nuclear reactor produced enough electricity each year to power a town the size of Swindon.

Switching it off has been a real wrench for the crew. One engineer said, ‘it’s like putting your best friend to sleep – the lads have built up this fantastic machine, kept it going … suddenly, you’re ending all that.’

It may have felt sudden, but the boat will be crewed for many months yet – it takes a long time for a nuclear reactor to cool down after 26 years of fission!

While growing up, when I wasn’t busy playing with hammers, I was intrigued by the Moon and I would act out Lego explorations of the Lunarscape. Two interests that that I have in common with engineer James Hall Nasmyth – whose invention of the steam hammer I explored in an earlier post.

Astronomy was one of Nasmyth’s passions and when he retired in 1856, he had more time to devote to scientific investigation.

He used this 20-inch reflecting telescope for looking at the Moon and Sun.

Nasmyth's 20 inch reflecting telescope (Science Museum / Science & Society Picture Library)

I first came across it on a visit to our Blythe House store, and I was drawn to the huge grey iron lump of a telescope amongst a display of slender wood and brass ones. You can really see his history in making industrial machinery.

Nasmyth used his chunky telescope to make detailed drawings and plaster models of his observations, and co-wrote a book with James Carpenter called The Moon, Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite.

It was impossible at the time to photograph all that he could see through his telescope, so instead he photographed his plaster models for use in the book.

Plaster relief model of a portion of the Moon by James Nasmyth (Science Museum / Science & Society Picture Library)

So two of our museum objects – a massive hammer and a lumpy telescope – have led to me on a journey through the story of James Hall Nasmyth. I jumped for joy last year when I saw that that same lumpy telescope was taken from storage and put on display as the entrance piece of our new Cosmos & Culture exhibition.

Nasmyth's telescope at the entrance of Cosmos & Culture (Science Museum)

Imagine the following pub conversation:

‘What are you driving these days?’

‘Actually, I’ve just taken delivery of my Jaguar Jet-Car. Just doing my bit for the environment…’

It’s not as outlandish as it seems. Jet cars have been around for a while and we’ve got the terrific Rover ‘Jet 1′ from 1948 on show at the Science Museum:

Rover 'Jet 1', 1948 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

The problem back then was that the jet engine (or gas turbine) was used to spin a shaft coupled directly to the car’s wheels, and jet engines aren’t too good at the rapid changes of speed demanded in a car.

Sixty years on, the idea’s back – but this time in a wholly new form. An automotive engineer I met at a transport industry event told me about research now being funded by the Technology Strategy Board on a jet-powered car.

The new approach, being led by Jaguar Land Rover, is to develop micro jet engines coupled to electrical generators, charging batteries that drive electric motors.

The concept is the same as hybrid cars such as the Toyota ‘Prius‘, but with a gas turbine rather than a conventional piston engine keeping the batteries charged. The trick, presumably, will be to balance a complex set of variables: power, weight, fuel consumption, size, cost and mechanical simplicity.

There’s also the cultural meaning of the jet engine, a potent symbol since the 1940s of British defiant modernism, an icon of Harold Wilson’s white heat of technology.

Whittle jet engine, 1941 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Let’s be honest. Jets are cool – they excite people – and if we’re to grapple successfully with environmental problems, we must remember people make technology choices for lots of reasons, not all of them rational. Something worth talking about down the pub, perhaps.

I love hammers, or to be more precise, I like hitting things with hammers. Be it nails, walnuts or – at some point in the long-distant past – brothers. So when I saw this giant steam powered hammer looming over me in Making the Modern World I had to learn more.

Nasmyth Steam Hammer (Science Museum / Science and Society Picture Library)

It was invented by James Hall Nasmyth. He was born in 1808, and drawn to mechanics from a young age, making his first steam engine at the age of 17.

He forged a successful career making industrial machinery – at least after an early setback when a piece of his iron work broke through the wooden floor of his workshop and landed in the glass cutters flat below.

The impetus for creating the steam hammer came in 1838 when the Great Western Company was experiencing problems making the Ship SS Great Britain. The company’s engineer, Francis Humphries, wrote to Nasmyth with a challenge: “I find there is not a forge-hammer in England or Scotland powerful enough to forge the paddle-shaft of the engine for the Great Britain! What am I to do?”

Steam Hammer painting by Nasymth

He’d come to the right man. Nasmyth patented the steam hammer in June 1842 and demonstrated it at The Great Exhibition of 1851. Well aware that the machine’s accuracy combined with its extraordinary power was a remarkable selling point, he set an egg resting on a glass under the hammer. When the hammer fell it broke the egg but not the glass. 

He then reset the machine, and the hammer thudded down with a thump that shook the building.

Although Nasmyth patented the hammer, and built his reputation on it, the first one was actually built at Eugene Schneider’s Le Creusot Ironworks in France, before 1842. This may have been the result of Schneider visiting Nasmyth’s works while he was away, and being shown Nasmyth’s sketch for the as-yet-unbuilt hammer. Nasmyth discovered the hammer working when he later paid a return visit to Le Creusot, and had to rush through a patent on his return to England. Always keep your secret drawings under lock and key!

Nasmyth retired in 1856 announcing, “I have now enough of this world’s goods: let younger men have their chance”. He might have been done with worldly goods, but he certainly wasn’t done with science. More on that in my next post…