Below are details and images from recent past events at the Whipple Museum.
Friday October 28th 6.00pm
'Roger go to yellow three' was an original vocal and dramatic work by Christopher Fox and Edward Wickham performed by the award-winning vocal ensemble The Clerks. The work explored the science of 'auditory streaming', the function of hearing which enables us to pick out a single conversation in a crowded room. Over 60 people attended, who themselves became subjects of research by filling out questionnaires based on what they were able to hear.
Visit www.theclerks.co.uk [http://www.theclerks.co.uk]for more information.
Thursday October 27th 1.00pm at the Whipple Museum
In this series of creative writing workshops participants worked with the stories of scientists who changed our ideas of the possible. They were encouraged to create their own poetry and fiction, inspired by items from the Whipple collection.
Presented by the Whipple Museum and Anglia Ruskin University.
Monday October 24th 6.30pm
Live performances and sound installations provided the background for a special late night opening of the museum galleries. This event was run in association with the Museum of Zoology, The Polar Museum, Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences and The Fitzwilliam Museum.
The Main Gallery of the Whipple was transformed into the belly of an imaginary machine. A sonorous, cyclic automaton nestled amongst years of scientific detritus: an installation inspired by the modern replica of Richard of Wallingford's 11th century astronomical clock. The sound piece was itself a replica of sorts; intricate mechanical processes were gradually unhinged and reassembled. This was a piece composed specifically for the Whipple by members of the University of Cambridge's Music Faculty.
Friday October 21st 2.00pm
What happens to an atom if you keep splitting it? How can philosophy have anything to do with the answer? Audience members joined Dr Jeremy Butterfield and Dr Nazim Boatta for a discussion of these issues. This event was so over-subscribed that the talk was repeated on the 26th October.
On Wednesay October 19th 5.00pm, the Whipple celebrated The Acoustical Experiments of Lord Rayleigh, a temporary exhibition of apparatus The museum will open at 5pm for light refreshments and speeches followed by a talk by Professor E. A. Davis at 6pm.
Tickets for this event are limited, so contact the Museum at hps-whipple-museum@lists.cam.ac.uk to reserve your place!
On Friday 9th September there was Music at the Whipple between 5.30pm and 7.00pm. Visitors explored our collections during our late opening with live music in the background.
Saturday opening at the Whipple: on 10th September the museum was open between 10am and 4pm.
On the above dates the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology's 'Cabinet of Curiosity' visited the Whipple Museum of the History of Science.
On Saturday 19th March, the Museum was open for the Cambridge Science Festival 2011. Visitors explored the Whipple Museum's collection and investigated how some of our objects work using the handling trolleys.
Find out more about Science Festival [http://comms.group.cam.ac.uk/sciencefestival/]
On Wednesday 23rd February from 4.30pm to 7.30pm the lights were dimmed for Twilight at the Museums. Visitors were encouraged to bring a torch and follow an ultraviolet trail around the galleries.
On 16th March at 5pm the Main Gallery was host to 'The Tables Turned', a role-play drama about science and Victorian spiritualism.
In Victorian Britain, thousands of people were turning tables. Participants at séances across the country heard long-departed voices, levitated musical instruments, and channelled strange languages, breaching supposed barriers between the natural and the supernatural, soul and matter, the known and the unknown, the quick and the dead. Well-known members of the scientific community, including co-discoverer of natural selection Alfred Russel Wallace and chemist William Crookes, were among them: active enthusiasts of spiritualism, and regular séance-goers. Others, such as Michael Faraday, were more sceptical, and denounced this popular pastime in the periodical press. Many fell somewhere in between on a spectrum of beliefs. But how were people supposed to judge what was going on, and who could be relied on for expert guidance? Was science able to determine whether the séance was real?
In 'The Tables Turned', the British Society for the History of Science's 'Strolling Players' visited the world of Victorian spiritualism. Travelling back in time to the early 1860s, they took their audience to a meeting of a scientific society to question processes of observation, fact-making, objectivity and reasoning, as well as the relationship between expert men of science and the wider public. This highly engaging event used film, role-play, and debate to bring key issues from the history and philosophy of science to life.
On March 10th, Dr Christopher Hicks of CEDAR Audio Ltd gave a talk entitled "O the noise, noise, Noise, NOISE!" on the characteristics of noise, noise reduction, and current digital techniques.
The following week, on March 17th, Prof. Jim Woodhouse of the Dept. of Engineering explored some of the ingenious ways in which tuned instruments have been designed in his talk "When is a structure a musical instrument? Adventures in tuned percussion".
On Wednesday February 3rd the Whipple Museum held a special concert to celebrate the works of astronomer and musician William Herschel. Featuring a talk from Michael Hoskin, a reading from Kelley Swain, and performances of William Herschel's oboe concerto in Eb and trio sonatas.
On February 12th a public half-day workshop relating to globes was held in the New Gallery, featuring talks by historians who have studied globes in the Whipple collection, and by the globe conservator Sylvia Sumira, who discussed the recent work she has carried out on several globes held by the Museum.
On Thursday October 29th, Katy Price and Kelley Swain (Whipple Museum Poet in Residence) held a creative writing workshop. Read Kelley's review on her blog here: http://kelleyswain.wordpress.com/ [http://kelleyswain.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/literary-events-at-the-whipple-poetry-workshop/]
During the week of 19th-22nd October 2009 the Whipple's writer-in-residence, Kelley Swain, was a guest in our Victorian Parlour.
On Thursday October 22nd, John Holmes gave a reading from his book, Darwin's Bards: Poetry in the Age of Evolution.
A hundred and fifty years after the discovery of Natural Selection, John Holmes explores how poets have responded to Darwin's big idea, and how poetry can help us to feel and understand what it means to live in a Darwinian universe.
On 22nd September 2009 the Whipple Museum's Main Gallery was the setting for an evening of Baroque music played by the Elsworth Baroque Trio. Established local musicians Patrick Welche (flute and recorder), Antony Copsey (violin) and Michael Taylor (harpsichord) performed on period-correct instruments to a crowd of over 70 visitors.
This event forms part of the Whipple's 'Science of Musical Sound' project, and was made possible by a grant from the Cambridge 800th Campaign [http://www.cam.ac.uk/800/].
[http://www.cam.ac.uk/800/]
On Wednesday May 6th a sell-out crowd packed the Whipple Museum's Main Gallery to join Theremin player Charles Draper in exploring the mysterious ninety-year history of the Theremin, the world's first purely electronic instrument and the only instrument played without touching. Encompassing events from the Russian Revolution to the present day, Charlie Draper's strange tale of the Theremin, which included fantastic performances on the instrument, proved a huge hit.
Over 330 people visited the Whipple on Saturday 14th March 2009 as part of the Cambridge Science Festival. Visitors had the opportunity to explore the Whipple's collection, or get involved in our special family hands-on workshop, where kids could make their own musical instruments and hear talks about the science of sound.
On 12th March 2009 Dr Jeff Hughes, Senior Lecturer in the History of Science and Technology at the University of Manchester, gave a talk in the Whipple Museum's Main Gallery entitled 'A Function of the Time': The Cavendish Society and its Postprandial Proceedings. This fascinating talk explored how, a century ago, research students in the Cavendish Laboratory wrote and sang humorous songs about science at their annual dinner, written to well-known tunes. The talk explored what the 'Postprandial Proceedings of the Cavendish Society' reveal about the culture of the Cambridge physics research community, and included performances of some of their songs by the HPS chorus.
» Visit the Naked Scentists website to listen to a podcast report of the Cambridge Science Festival 2009, including a section on the Cavendish Society talk. [http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/show/2009.03.15/] (Skip forward to the 42 minute mark to hear an interview with Dr Jeff Hughes and some short excepts of the songs being sung by the HPS chorus.)
From 4:30-7pm on Wednesday 18th February 2009, over 300 visitors visited a very dark Whipple Museum and explored the collections with their torches.
All of the University Museums were open late for this special Twilight event, and many people took up the challenge of visiting more than one museum during the evening.
Families followed our space-themed trail, solved the clues and revealed the secret code word using a special UV torch.
Timed to co-incide with our exhibition on the Antikythera Mechanism (exhibition closes February 27th 2009), on February 6th 2009 the Whipple Museum hosted a half-day conference to discuss the history of research into the Antikythera Mechanism and review the most recent discoveries about this ancient Greek artefact. Despite the snowy weather, the conference was very well attended, with Yanis Bitsakis, Mike Edmunds and Tony Freeth (all members of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project [http://www.antikythera-mechanism.gr/]) presenting talks along with Alexander Jones (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University). The conference was opened with an introduction from the Whipple Museum's Director, Liba Taub, and closing remarks were given by Paul Cartledge of the University of Cambridge Faculty of Classics.
On October 29th 2008 Research Fellow Dr. Torben Rees gave a talk in the Museum's Main Gallery on the history of the science of music from 1700 to 1900. The talk formed part of the University of Cambridge's new Festival of Ideas, and used demonstration instruments and clips of music to show how instruments from this period were used in the study of the science of music.
[http://www.torbenrees.com]Following the success of the first 'Jazz at the Whipple' live event in April, the Whipple held a further two concerts with late openings in July and October 2008. On the 16th of July the Hot Club of Cambridge performed Gypsy jazz to a packed audience in the Whipple's Main Gallery, and on the 22nd of October the Torben Rees [http://www.torbenrees.com] Quartet returned to perform a selection of jazz standards and original music.
Look out for more musical events and talks in 2009 as part of our Science of Musical Sound series.
Many of these events have been made possible by a grant from MLA Renaissance East of England [http://www.renaissance-east.org.uk/].
Renaissance is all about transforming England's regional museums: making them world class and fit for the 21st century.
The first investment of its kind, Renaissance is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make museums great centres of life and learning, closely connected to their localities, which people want to use. The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), the lead strategic body for museums, has secured nearly £150 million from central government for this groundbreaking programme between 2002 and 2008.
[http://www.renaissance-east.org.uk]
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Whipple Museum of the History of Science