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The Science Museum
The Science Museum on Exhibition Road, Kensington, London, is part of the National Museum of Science and Industry. The museum is a major London tourist attraction.
A museum was founded in 1857 under Bennet Woodcroft from the collection of the Royal Society of Arts and surplus items from the Great Exhibition. It was initially part of the South Kensington Museum, together with what is now The Victoria and Albert Museum, but was separated and became the Museum of Patents in 1858, the Patent Office Museum in 1863. This museum contained many of the most famous exhibits of what is now the Science Museum. In 1885, the Science Collections were renamed The Science Museum and in 1893 a separate Director was appointed. The Art Collections were renamed the Art Museum, which became the Victoria and Albert Museum nearby. The Patent Office Museum was merged into The Science Museum in 1909.
The Science Museum now holds a collection of over 300,000 items, including such famous items as Stephenson's Rocket, Puffing Billy (another early locomotive), the first jet engine, Francis Crick and James Watson's model of DNA, some of the earliest remaining steam engines, a working example of Charles Babbage's Difference engine, and the first prototype of the 10,000-year Clock of the Long Now. It also contains hundreds of interactive exhibits. A recent addition is the IMAX Theatre showing science and nature documentaries, some of them in 3-D.
The museum houses many objects collected by Henry Wellcome around a medical theme, these are displayed up on the 4th and 5th floors. In November 2003 the Science Museum opened the Dana Centre which is an urban bar and café annexed to the Museum, and is presently the UK's only dedicated venue for adults to discuss controversial science.
The Science Museum also organises "Science Night", where up to 380 children aged between 8 and 11 accompanied by adults, are invited to spend an evening performing fun "science based" activities and then spend the night sleeping in the galleries museum amongst the exhibits. In the morning, they're woken to breakfast and more science, watching an IMAX film before the end of the event. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Science_Museum)
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