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The Science Museum
The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Science Museum does not charge visitors for admission, although visitors are requested to make a donation if they are able. Temporary exhibitions may incur an admission fee. It is one of the five museums in the Science Museum Group. Founding and history The museum was founded in 1857 under Bennet Woodcroft from the collection of the Royal Society of Arts and surplus items from the Great Exhibition as part of the South Kensington Museum, together with what is now the Victoria and Albert Museum. It included a collection of machinery which became the ''Museum of Patents'' in 1858, and the ''Patent Office Museum'' in 1863. This collection contained many of the most famous exhibits of what is now th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exhibition Road
Exhibition Road is a street in South Kensington, London which is home to several major museums and academic establishments, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum. Overview The road gets its name from The Great Exhibition of 1851 which was held just inside Hyde Park at the northern end of the road. After the central road in the area, Queen's Gate, it is the second thoroughfare in what was once Albertopolis. It provides access to many nationally significant institutions, including: * Victoria and Albert Museum * Science Museum * Natural History Museum (which incorporates the former Geological Museum) * Royal Geographical Society, at the north end in Kensington Gore * Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, at the north end in Princes Gate * Imperial College London (directly and via Imperial College Road) * Pepperdine University Abroad * Jagiellonian University London Study Centre in the Polish Hearth Club * London Goethe I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Machine
A machine is a physical system using Power (physics), power to apply Force, forces and control Motion, movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromolecules, such as molecular machines. Machines can be driven by Animal power, animals and Human power, people, by natural forces such as Wind power, wind and Water power, water, and by Chemical energy, chemical, Thermal energy, thermal, or electricity, electrical power, and include a system of mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement. They can also include computers and sensors that monitor performance and plan movement, often called mechanical systems. Renaissance natural philosophers identified six simple machines which were the elementary devices that put a load into motion, and calculated the ratio of output force to input fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heathfield Hall
Heathfield Hall (sometimes referred to as Heathfield House) was a house in Handsworth, Staffordshire (the area became part of Birmingham in 1911), England, built for the engineer James Watt. In 1790, Watt's business partner Matthew Boulton recommended to Watt his friend, the architect Samuel Wyatt, who had designed Boulton's home, Soho House, in 1789. Watt commissioned Wyatt to design Heathfield Hall. Watt died in the house in 1819, and was buried at nearby St Mary's Church. His garret workshop was then sealed, and few people were ever allowed to visit it. The contents - over 8,300 objects, including the furniture, window, door and floorboards - were removed in 1924 and used to recreate the room at the Science Museum in London, where they may still be viewed. After a series of subsequent owners who had slowly sold off the associated lands for development of semi-detached villas, in the 1880s engineer George Tangye bought Heathfield Hall. He lived in the house until his dea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, the increasing use of steam power and water power, the development of machine tools and the rise of the mechanized factory system. Output greatly increased, and a result was an unprecedented rise in population and in the rate of population growth. Textiles were the dominant industry of the Industrial Revolution in terms of employment, value of output and capital invested. The textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods. The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain, and many of the technological and architectural innovations were of British origin. By the mid-18th century, Britain was the world's leadi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Bess (beam Engine)
''Old Bess'' is an early beam engine built by the partnership of Boulton and Watt. The engine was constructed in 1777 and worked until 1848. The engine is most obviously known simply for being an early example of an engine built by Boulton and Watt. However it also played a far more important role in the development of steam engines for being the first engine designed to work with an early cutoff, and so to use the expansion of the steam for greater efficiency. It is now preserved in the Power Gallery of the Science Museum, London. It is the oldest surviving Watt engine, and the third-oldest surviving beam engine. Watt's previous Kinneil Engine Watt's first engine at Kinneil in Scotland had been unsuccessful, and the parts were taken down and re-used at Boulton's Soho Manufactory in Birmingham. The reworked engine was more successful there, and encouraged Boulton to invest further in this developing steam technology and in Watt's inventions. The Manufactory had been buil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steam Engines
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be transformed, by a connecting rod and crank, into rotational force for work. The term "steam engine" is generally applied only to reciprocating engines as just described, not to the steam turbine. Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separated from the combustion products. The ideal thermodynamic cycle used to analyze this process is called the Rankine cycle. In general usage, the term ''steam engine'' can refer to either complete steam plants (including boilers etc.), such as railway steam locomotives and portable engines, or may refer to the piston or turbine machinery alone, as in the beam engine and stationary steam engine. Although steam-driven devices were known as early as the aeolipile in the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steam Engine In Science Museum Power Gallery
Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Steam that is saturated or superheated is invisible; however, "steam" often refers to wet steam, the visible mist or aerosol of water droplets formed as water vapor condenses. Water increases in volume by 1,700 times at standard temperature and pressure; this change in volume can be converted into mechanical work by steam engines such as reciprocating piston type engines and steam turbines, which are a sub-group of steam engines. Piston type steam engines played a central role in the Industrial Revolution and modern steam turbines are used to generate more than 80% of the world's electricity. If liquid water comes in contact with a very hot surface or depressurizes quickly below its vapor pressure, it can create a steam explosion. Types ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Museum - East Hall 2390
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for scientific reasoning is tens of thousands of years old. The earliest written records in the history of science come from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages, but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age and later by the efforts of Byzantine Greek scholars who brought Greek man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swindon
Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon unitary authority area had a population of 233,410 as of 2021. Located in South West England, the town lies between Bristol, 35 miles (56 kilometres) to its west, and Reading, Berkshire, Reading, equidistant to its east. Recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book as ''Suindune'', it was a small market town until the mid-19th century, when it was selected as the principal site for the Great Western Railway's repair and maintenance Swindon Works, works, leading to a marked increase in its population. The new town constructed for the railway workers produced forward-looking amenities such as the UK’s first lending library and a ‘cradle-to-grave' health care centre that was later used as a blueprint for the National Health Service, NHS. After the W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Collections Centre
The National Collections Centre, near Swindon, England, is the collections management facility for the Science Museum Group and the Science Museum Library & Archives. Overview The Science Museum originally took ownership of the 545-acre former RAF Wroughton airfield in 1979, to be used as a storage facility for the museum's largest objects. A collection of approximately 35,000 objects is currently stored in six of the hangars and a purpose-built store. These include the world's first hovercraft, MRI scanners, computers, (de-activated) nuclear missiles and much more. In 2007 the collection of the Science Museum Library and Archives was also relocated to new facilities at the site. In 2016 the site started to be featured in ''The Grand Tour'', a motoring entertainment show. The show's three ex 'Top Gear' hosts use some of the roads surrounding the museum buildings as a vehicle test track each week. In 2018 the site was rebranded as the National Collections Centre to reflect t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queen's Gate
Queen's Gate is a street in South Kensington, London, England. It runs south from Kensington Gardens' Queen's Gate (the edge of which gardens are here followed by Kensington Road) to Old Brompton Road, intersecting Cromwell Road. The street is mostly in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, but part of the east side is in the City of Westminster. The municipal boundary is the street centre between Kensington Road and Imperial College Road. History The street was built on land purchased by the Royal Commissioners for the Great Exhibition under an agreement dated August 1855 with Henry Browne Alexander, whose family owned the land through which the road was to pass, and William Jackson, a building speculator. The road was originally known as Albert's Road, but was officially changed to Queen's Gate in 1859. Local Politics Queen's Gate is also a three-councillor ward of Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea with a population of 9,847 (2011 Census). The local Member of Pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
