News

2024 marks 150 years since the founding of the Cavendish Laboratory of Experimental Physics. No one could have predicted in 1874 that Cambridge physics would give birth to the atomic age: that the electron and neutron would be discovered, and the atom itself split, on Free School Lane. From delicate glass vessels and...

Jim Bennett, pre-eminent historian of scientific instruments, former Curator of the Whipple Museum, former Fellow and Senior Tutor of Churchill College, internationally celebrated curator and museum director, has died in Oxford at the age of 76. James Arthur Bennett—always Jim to his friends—was born on 2 April 1947. After...

Craftswomen is a new exhibition at the Whipple Museum exploring the work of women in the British instrument trade between the 17th and 19th centuries. It exposes the often unseen work of the ‘craftswomen’ who made instruments for measuring, modelling and investigating the world. There are many famous women in the history...

Featuring industrial tools and a creature called a ‘Dragoyle’, our new display on Measuring Air Before Covid showcases scientific instruments used to test ventilation. During the Covid-19 pandemic, increasing ventilation has been important in reducing transmission. Measuring instruments previously used in mines and...