Later this month my son and 11 of his Olin classmates are taking a trip to London (England) for a week. Are there any "can't miss" places for a group of hard core electronic/mechanical types?
Kevin Gallimore
Later this month my son and 11 of his Olin classmates are taking a trip to London (England) for a week. Are there any "can't miss" places for a group of hard core electronic/mechanical types?
Kevin Gallimore
The Science Museum. It has an amazing collection of real artifacts, not just demonstrations of "how things work". Things I remember:
- A full-size Fresnel lens that used to be in a lighthouse (about 10 feet high)
- Michael Faraday's electromagnet
- Rows of airplane engines on stands
- A 3-strip Technicolor movie camera
- Several steam engines, including a large one that used to power a whole textile mill, which they run sometimes
- A modern realization of most of Babbage's Difference Engine, demonstrating that it would have worked if completed. Also some subassemblies for the Analytical Engine dating from Babbage's time.
- A mechanical analog computer (differential analyzer) of circa WWII vintage.
- Various early electronic computing artifacts
I've spent about 4 days in the place spread across several trips to London, and I still haven't seen everything.
Also: the Kew Bridge Steam Museum: several truly giant beam-type steam engines that used to pump water for London. On the weekends, they actually have some of the engines demonstrated operating under steam. Unfortunately, there was only one day I could get to it, and it was a weekday.
The British Museum has an amazing collection of clocks and clock mechanisms.
Dave
The Science Museum, The old Kew Gardens pumping station[on Sunday they steam a hundred year plus beam engine 4 or 5 stories tall, a real sight] for the civil eng types look a the structures in the older tube stations and the under side of the old bridges[a trip up the Themes to Richmond or back down from there gives great views of the under sides-these are quite beautiful especially compared to what we build today] also the older train stations
Chuck P.
This sounds like a great idea. But to make it even better if you can contact the appropiate authority I'll bet that you can arrange a real "behind the scenes" tour.
Might take some digging but should be doable I should think. I have been able to tour an amazing number of shops just my asking. My philosophy is, what's the worst they can say? No? But they might say yes!
Errol Groff
You can also take the tube down to the docks on the London side and then walk under the Thames to Greenwich via a Victorican foot tunnel. That alone is worth the effort. The Cutty Sark is worth a tour, while you're there.
-- Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)
The foot tunnel plays a bit-part in one of P D James' novels (Jeez, you've got to read her!), the one about the publishing house. Mike in BC
Pity they're not going to the Black Country and North of England, then they could see the true beginnings of the Industrial Revolution; not in poncified Lunnun. Mike in BC
Stonehenge. Now that's engineering!
Yours,
Doug Goncz Replikon Research Falls Church, VA 22044-0394
"England's dark, satanic mills" (Jerusalem by William Blake)
Up around Birm>Black country? (Be k>> >>
The last time over, we took the boat ride down to Greenwich. You can see the Royal Observatory with Harrison's chronometers, the Prime Meridian, and a tea clipper, the Cutty Sark. There was a bunch more stuff I didn't have time to see.
On the other hand, some damn curator has wrecked the Tower of London. Now it's an "interactive exhibit" or some such nonsense, instead of the great old piles of arms and armor it used to be. It used to be a treasure hunt. This time it felt like someone telling a story to an audience that was not too bright.
Pete Keillor
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