📣Interested in pursuing a postgraduate degree in the history of STM? Wishing to apply to our Hans Rausing Scholarship? Then this webinar is for you!
Pursuing a research degree in the history of STM
Thursday 12 March
17.00-18.00 (GMT)
Register via Eventbrite ⬇️
#histsci #histtech #histmed #histstm
The Division for the History of Science and Technology is running another ECR workshop series in the second half of 2026. I really enjoyed taking part in the first series, which covered an impressively broad list of topics, from writing book reviews and grant proposals to...
Are you a researcher in the field of history of science, technology and medicine? There's still time to submit your paper for the #NotesAndRecords essay award. Submit your research by 28 February 2026: buff.ly/dedMm93 #HistSci #HistSTM #HistMed
And I *quite literally* follow in her footsteps - something to remember as I trudge between Albemarle Street and Free School Lane each week!
Tipper was incredible - not only was she a Research Assistant in the DFRL at @rigb.org in the early 1920s, but simultaneously worked at the Royal School of Mines AND assisted GI Taylor at @cambridgephysics.bsky.social
Congrats to @rigb.org’s chair, SRC!
A toolbox resting on the lecture desk in the Ri Theatre
Fantastic news: our historic lecture Theatre is set for a major refurbishment later this year, thanks to support from The Wolfson Foundation!
The works will include new seats, restoration of the iconic lecture desk, state-of-the-art audio-visual infrastructure and accessibility enhancements.
I wish! Physically back in the UK now, but mentally somewhere else (and sooooo jet lagged haha)
A single red maple tree at the top of Kanazawa Castle/Kenrokuen Gardens, overlooking the city with mountains in the distance
The last of the red leaves 🍂
📍 Kanazawa Castle Park, Ishikawa, Japan
From flaming raisins to robots and rockets, the institution’s Christmas Lectures have educated and entertained for two centuries
go.nature.com/3Yeu8v3
Hai!
A giant sculpture of a blue whale outside the museum, surrounded by ginkgo trees in yellow and red tones.
Entrance to the exhibition “quantum century” with black and green text on a white banner.
A curved glass specimen wall containing samples of plants and ferns.
The “360” exhibition centerpiece - a dinosaur skeleton and a space ship exhibited together.
Had the best day at the Nature and Science Museum in Tokyo today. A productive time researching Ayrton as well as getting sidetracked by everything else! 🐋 🦕 🌱 🚀
At Cambridge I worked with @whipplemuseum.bsky.social and @chuarchives.bsky.social to explore why Bacon’s cell ended up in space 🚀 from Grove’s letter we see that the basic principles were the same - tho the composition of the Bacon’s nickel membrane was kept under the official secrets act 🤫
We met over dinner last week! (Too nice to call it scran…)
Picture of the bridge of sighs in Oxford, early afternoon in autumn. Everything is in hues of gold.
Oxford, you’ve been an absolute treat! Thanks for having me @bodleian.ox.ac.uk - I’ll be back 👀 @stannescollege.bsky.social
📢 JOB ALERT 📢
Come work with me! @rigb.org is hiring an Archivist, full time, 2 year, fixed-term contract, hybrid working possible.
Please share widely!
More details 👇
www.rigb.org/about-us/wor...
Why, that would make a great book cover…
The lectures also feature one of my favourite items in @rigb.org’s collection - Morrison’s huge (and functional!) pencil ✏️ 👇
There really should be! The earliest surviving @rigb.org Christmas Lecture footage is Philip Morrisons’s series - it takes direct inspiration from Guilliver’s Travels, even reading from it at various points youtube.com/playlist?lis...
I definitely recommend *chequing* out the finer details of this note if you have one! Lots of lovely little science details (even if the xmas lectures year turned out to be wrong…)
And rumour has it the men in the front row of the audience are from the Bank of England 🤔
Glad you enjoyed the exhibition! The Ri funded the publication to be reproduced from Lonsdale’s draft (at great expense!) as she didn’t trust the typesetters to get it right. All for the better I think - it’s such a magical book to look through, and not many copies of it around either.
3/4 sketch portraits of Herschel (left) and Faraday (right) on a small piece of paper, laid on top of a letter. MS. eng. lett. C. 718, fold. 138-143. Bodleian Libraries. Digital surrogate online.
Nice little break from transcribing letters: found these doodles of Faraday @rigb.org and Herschel in a letter from novelist Maria Edgeworth (1802-1869) in 1844 @bodleian.ox.ac.uk, writing about Faraday’s Xmas lectures on electricity - pretty solid likenesses to be honest!
The Bodliean’s Radcliffe Camera, a sandstone cylindrical building, behind a wrought iron fence.
Not quite sure how I’ve been here nearly a week already?! @bodleian.ox.ac.uk’s Rad Cam looking lovely in the sun ☀️
To celebrate 200 years of Royal Institution Discourses, our friends at @rigb.org have released a newly-digitised version of a 1970 Discourse given by Kathleen Lonsdale FRS on 'Women in Science'. Listen to this fascinating lecture now:
#WomenInSTEM
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzlA...
Text extra from cam gov website: The observation wheel. The council has a contract with City View Wheel Company for an observation wheel to be situated on Parker's Piece for up to 16 weeks each summer from 2021 to 2025. The observation wheel is intended to help attract visitors to the city centre and provide a much-needed boost for city centre businesses, following a difficult couple of years which have seen many local businesses suffer during the pandemic. It also offers a leisure opportunity for those visiting the city, using the open space, or wanting to see the city from a new perspective. Measuring 36 metres in height, the observation wheel plus seating area and ticket office, which is operated by the City View Wheel Company., can carry up to 144 people in 24 gondolas at any one time - offering visitors and residents alike panoramic views over the historic city centre.
Hopefully gone for good!🤞🏻
The wonderful @rigb.org Demo Team getting the recognition they deserve ✨ 🧪
We are so proud of our amazing Demo Team for being recognised as "global leaders in spectacular science demonstrations" with the 2025 @royalsociety.org Hauksbee Award. 👏
We can't wait to show you what they have in store for the 200th anniversary of the Christmas Lectures!
Picture of Hasok Chang. A reflection of a ceiling light in the window makes him look like he has a halo.
Well we all know Hasok is angelic, so it definitely tracks….
Preaching from the pragmatic pulpit I presume
This is not only a serious issue for historians and not only a serious issue for academics (although it is that). It's a development that's also deleterious for the GLAM sector, for example, and part of a much larger trend nationally and internationally to restrict and dismantle access to archives.
