The Faraday Museum

The Faraday Museum is a free museum at the Royal Institute. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know my passion for science, so it’s not surprising that we went for a visit on our holiday in London. My husband is even more into science and he likes reading about physics, among other things.

We’ve been to the lower ground which has the theme experimentation. We also saw the Lecture Theater on the first floor. They organise tours and there are some exhibits at the ground floor too.

The lower ground exhibition starts with the periodic table. It has that ear-worm of the song (check on youtube if you don’t know it – The Periodic Table Song) and the elements would light up and we had to press them exactly at that moment. We got a score of 11, which is not too bad at all, especially as not all of them light up.

It is a fun way to start the visit, that’s for sure.

The museum has a lot of items on display. I would say it needs about an hour to see each of them properly and read the signs. For example, these miner’s lamps are relevant as Humphry Davy invented the safety lamp in the basement of RI. A clergyman asked Davy to create a safer lamp after miners were killed in north-east England in 1815 in explosions. This new type of lamp was very successful and the number of people dying was reduced greatly. The Olympic flame is transported today in a modified version of Davy’s lamp.

Michael Faraday’s Magnetic Laboratory is just wonderfully displayed. Also, this is the actual room where he worked. It’s such a wonderful piece of history.

CHRISTMAS LECTURES! We watch them, even if we don’t have children. This year the presenter was Jonathan Van-Tam, so you can imagine how entertaining it was. I am always happy to see that the level of discussion is elevated and that children are expected to understand. Parents can always explain the things that are a bit difficult to understand.
Past lectures are available on their website, here.

We visited a few days after the lectures were filmed, so they were still taking out props.

The Faraday Museum at the Ri. Entry is free and the Museum is open from 9am till 5pm Monday to Friday. The Royal Institution of Great Britain is on 21 Albemarle Street, London, W1S 4BS. It is within a ten minute walk from Piccadilly Circus or Oxford Circus tube station.