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DISCOVERMUNCYT ALCOBENDAS
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYGuide for children aged 9 to 99
María Josefa Jiménez, Ignacio de la Lastra, Josefa Prados, Alfredo Baratas, Rosa Capeáns,
Ana Guillamón, Amparo Gutiérrez, Teresa Heras, Jesús Hidalgo, A. J. Hudspeth, Ruth López,
Miguel Martínez, Nuria Molinero, Laura Orensanz, Vicente Subiela, Jerry Tchadie, Marcos Villaverde
and the Naval Museum of Cartagena
// acknowledgements
Published by: Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology
e-NIPO: 720-15-100-X
NIPO: 720-15-099-7
Legal deposit number: M-23855-2015
Design, layout and printing: Everyoneplus
Photography: Yolanda Villaverde López, Archives of the National Museum of Science and
Technology and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology
Illustrations reinterpreted by: Fernando Jordán, (Everyoneplus)
www.muncyt.es
facebook.com/muncyt
@muncyt
// publisher
// follow us on...
MINISTRY OF ECONOMY AND COMPETITIVENESS
Minister: Luis de Guindos Jurado
Secretary of State for Research, Development and Innovation: Carmen Vela Olmo
SPANISH FOUNDATION FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (FECYT)
Director General: José Ignacio Fernández Vera
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (MUNCYT)
Director: Marián del Egido Rodríguez
Discover MUNCYT Alcobendas. National Museum of Science and Technology Guide for children aged 9 to 99
Review and extension of contents by Rosa Martín Latorre and Emilio José Bande Fuentes
Text and illustrations from the first edition by Pablo Martínez Mena
// credits
// introduction“All grown-ups were once children, although few of them remember it.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,
The Little Prince.
Somehow, almost every grown-up has forgotten what they were like as children, and this is the reason for
the National Museum of Science and Technology’s decision to publish this guide, in an attempt to rediscover
the best qualities of this time that you are lucky enough to be enjoying.
Curiosity, the desire to learn and experiment and asking ‘why?’ characterise these first stage of life.
Funnily enough (or not), these are also the main motivations of science.
In childhood we are all like those philosophers before Socrates who wondered whether the world was made
up just of water, air or fire; marvellous scientists before their time.
With this guide we hope to rekindle your interest in the origin of the science and technology of all those
objects that make our lives easier, and in the lives of the scientists who made it possible. Also, after the
museum visit (and reading) we are sure that you will also have learnt how important it is to look after and
preserve the items that have survived down the centuries.
The great science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke said in one of his books that “any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic”.
Let’s discover it together in this museum.
Marián del Egido Rodríguez
Director of the National Museum of Science and Technology
Small things up close ............................................................ 13 The fascinating microscopic world ......................................... 14
Fascination ............................................................................. 19 Light projections .................................................................. 21 Frozen images ...................................................................... 22 Lights, camera... action! ........................................................ 24
Prevention better than cure .................................................... 27 Electrotherapy... and visit to the dentist in the past ..................... 28 Instruments for surgery or torture? .......................................... 30 Hygiene ............................................................................. 31
Techno-evolution ................................................................... 33 The telephone .................................................................... 34 Television and radio ............................................................. 36 Recorded sound .................................................................. 37
Home, sweet home ................................................................ 39 Sounds from yesterday ........................................................ 40 Domestic technology ........................................................... 41
Spanish innovation ................................................................ 43 What do scientists do? .......................................................... 44 Spanish science .................................................................. 45 Brilliant discoveries .............................................................. 46
Wheels .................................................................................. 49 By pedal ............................................................................ 51 ...And by motor ................................................................... 52
......... ......................................................................... 10
grande .................. 5MUSEUMS ARE FULL OF
MARVELS
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Every cloud has a silver lining ..................................................... 73 How does a barometer work? ..................................................... 74 What’s the weather like on Jupiter? ............................................. 75 “Compass” clouds ..................................................................... 77
Warmer, warmer.......................................................................... 79 Steam power ............................................................................ 82 How does a steam engine work? ................................................ 83
Electrifying! ................................................................................. 85 Electric machines ...................................................................... 86 Measuring electricity .................................................................. 89 Natural electricity ....................................................................... 90
Machines and forces ................................................................... 93 Archimedes the Inventor ............................................................. 94 Impressive pressure .................................................................. 96
Nnnnoises and soundsss ............................................................ 99 The speed of sound ................................................................ 100
Let there be light! ...................................................................... 103 Lenses and prisms ................................................................. 104 Colours of light ....................................................................... 106
grande.... ......................................................................................... 54Thousands of stars, clocks and mathematics .............................. 57 Crossing the seas ...................................................................... 58 Sundials .................................................................................. 60 Precise times ........................................................................... 61 Observing the Universe ............................................................. 64 The Earth is huge! .................................................................... 68
ANSWERS ........................... 108
......... ......................................................................... 10
SPACE AND TIMEROOM
gran... ....................................................................................... 70LABORATORYROOM
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Surely once upon a time you collected something like stickers, minerals, stamps... Museums are centres with collections of objects (perhaps paintings or dinosaur skeletons) that they put on show so that people can learn from them and enjoy looking at them. Museums do lots of things: they look for pieces, restore them if they have been damaged, find out what they were used for and what period they come from, and once they know all that, put them on show in the museum.
In the National Museum of Science and Technology you can take a stroll through the origins of science and technology and see, amongst other things, what instruments sailors used in the past so they didn’t get lost at sea, what the first television sets were like or how time was measured before there were digital clocks.
full of marvelsMuseums are
The Dance of Apollo with the Muses, Giulio Romano (around 1540). The origin of the word
museum is found in the Muses, nine Greek divinities who were daughters of Zeus and
formed part of the entourage of the god Apollo and protected arts and sciences.
One of the nine Muses, Urania, looked after astronomy and mathematics. She would
have felt very at home here in the museum!
fMain entrance of MUNCYT in Alcobendas
MUSEums ARE FULL OF
marvels
6
Some of them are bought in auctions – just like there are auctions for paintings, there are also auctions for scientific instruments, or from individual sellers.
Others are lent to us for a certain amount of time; this is what is called a loan. There are even people who generously donate them so that the whole world can enjoy their collection!
Once the museum has acquired an object, it has to look after it so that it doesn’t deteriorate, so it has to conserve it or restore it if it is damaged.
For example museums control the humidity and temperature levels, because if the conditions are not suitable wooden objects crack and metal ones rust.
Some museums do not let you take photographs with flash.This is because it is a very intense light and intense lights ruin colours.
Restoring the racing car Abarth 2000
// how do the pieces get to the museum?
DID YOU KNOW
7
Unrestored astrolabe. Look at the marks!
Conservation is not the last thing that needs doing though.
Then you have to investigate who invented it (if it was a famous scientist it is more valuable), when it was made, what it was used for... Sometimes it feels like detective work!
Luckily, the museum has a library with more than 14,000 books to help us with this vitally important work.
MUSEums ARE FULL OF
marvels
8
Is the detective right? Look for the mysterious object in the exhibition and find out what it was used for. If you can’t find the answer, look at the end of this book.
... mmmm elementary!
THAT’S A NUTCRACKER !
1st
EXERCISE
9
The National Museum of Science and Technology wants people to learn and value science through its collections.
With this objective in mind, we organise guided tours, conferences and workshops. For those that can’t help touching everything, we have interactive modules.
Museums are very exciting places... Come and visit us!
HERITAGEROOMAll the pieces you can see in museums are heritage: valuable assets that we have inherited from our forefathers and that we have to look after so that the future inhabitants of our plant can enjoy them as much as we do. Thanks to others before us who saved and looked after all of these objects throughout time, today we can get some idea of what life was like for them and what they knew about in the past... that’s why it’s so important that we do the same!
The National Museum of Science and Technology looks after the scientific and historical heritage of almost 18,000 pieces. In this museum you can see more than 500!
Small things up close
Fascination
Prevention better than cure
Techno-evolution
Home, sweet home
Spanish innovation
Wheels
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5
3
7
2
6
4
temporary exhibitions
entrance
Look at the numbers that appear to the side of the images to see exactly where you can find them in the room!
13
Curiosity is one of the things that make us human: it has been and still is one of the driving forces of science, and therefore, the development of humankind. Did you know that in 1609, Galileo Galilei, brought the planets and the stars closer with the first telescope and that Janssen constructed the first microscope at the end of the16th century through which we could see the smallest things in the world?
The telescope and the microscope have many things in common. Both are inventions that changed the way we look at the world through something as ‘simple’ as lenses and mirrors.
Small things up close
Pollen seen under a scanning electron microscope.
fMoss seen under an 18th century optical microscope
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There are two types of optical microscopes: the simple kind (which only has one lens) and the compound (which is formed by at least two lenses).
// the fascinating microscopic world
Can you identify this image? In the room ‘small things up close’ of the museum you will find the answer and if you have any trouble, take a peek at the back of the book.
2nd
EXERCISE
15
This instrument is a simple microscope made around 1700. It is very similar to a magnifying glass. Inside there is a dial with different lenses that you can choose from.
Small things up close1
Culpeper-type compound microscope (around 1750)
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The solar microscope projected the image of the specimen on a wall.
Solar microscope (around 1790)
The lenses, by ‘bending’ light rays, make the images of the objects look bigger.
17
Electron microscopes are different from optical microscopes (the most well-known) as they use a stream of electrons to see the specimen while optical microscopes use light.
Thanks to this you can make objects appear millions of times bigger instead of the thousands of times that you get with optical microscopes.
The scanning electron microscope shows a very real and enlarged image of all types of materials. Transmission electron microscope (around 1963)
EXPERIMENT!D.I.Y. Microscope: Make a small hole in a sheet of plastic and put a drop of water on it. The drop becomes a lens, so you will have a simple microscope you can use to look at leaves, insects...
Small things up close1
19
Can you imagine the world without cinema? Until the 17th century nobody could enjoy the spectacle of light projections. Over the years, inventions with curious names like the phenakistoscope, the praxinoscope or the zoetrope, made the illusion of image movement possible in a similar way to cartoons.
Later on, in the middle of the 19th century, the first photographic machines were created and the Lumiére brothers invented the cinematograph in the last decade. The only thing missing was the popcorn!
Fascination
“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.
Do you recognise this photograph? On 20 July 1969, as a result of all the efforts
of many scientists and engineers, man arrived on the Moon in a spacecraft, stepping on the
surface for the first time in history.
fClose-up of a picture strip from the Ombro-Cinema of MUNCYT
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Magic lanterns are basically slide projectors. You could even call them the great-grandfathers of our PowerPoint! Children in the past enjoyed stories and tales thanks to this interesting piece of equipment.
This type of instrument with such a lovely name (can you think of a better name for a museum piece?) dates back to the 17th century, but it became more popular during the 19th century.
// light projections
Magic lantern (1890-1910)
Public projections with magic lanterns were not only held in theatres and closed venues, but there were also ‘projectionists’ who travelled from city to city presenting their magic lantern show to whoever would pay to see it.
DID YOU KNOW
21
This mechanical slide for a magic lantern shows the passing of a passenger train typical of the second half of the 19th century (with six carriages and a steam engine) on a railway bridge.
Some of these objects were painted by important artists of the time. If you look closely you will be make out the drivers and the passengers perfectly.
Mechanical slide for a magic lantern (around 1870)
Fascination2
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One of the pioneers of photography was the Frenchman Louis Daguerre, who in around 1830 used metal plates covered with a silver compound that reacted to light, leaving a printed image on the plate. These compounds reacted slowly and it took 20 minutes for the image to set! After many advances then came the Kodak camera, marketed by George Eastman from 1888 onwards. The idea consisted of replacing the glass plates for a reel of celluloid, so that many photos could be taken in a row, instead of having to change the plate after each photo. Thanks to this idea we can all be photographers!
The photographs from the man’s first walk on the Moon were made with a Hasselblad camera like
that shown in the museum but adapted to the extreme conditions on the Moon.
Hasselblad Camera (1968)
// frozen images
23
Street photography camera (1930-1960)
This type of camera was used by street photographers in the 19th century, and until the middle of the 20th century.
The black hood helped the photographer focus the image properly.
Fascination2
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The phenakistoscope, zoetrope and praxinoscope (like the item you can see in the photograph) are ‘pre-cinema’ objects, or objects that came before the cinema. They made the illusion of movement possible with successive drawings showing an action or a scene.
Praxinoscope strip from the 19th century with dancers
// lights, camera… action!
Theatre praxinoscope (around 1880)
Try it! In the corner of a notebook draw a figure; on the next page draw the figure again but slightly move it over… and so on. If you flick the pages quickly the figure moves! It’s known as a flipbook.
When you watch a film at the cinema, what you are watching is a series of images that pass so quickly that the brain runs them together.
EXPERIMENT!
DID YOU KNOW
25
The first cinema projector, made by the Lumiére brothers, was presented to the public in 1895.
People were impressed by the ‘theatre of moving images’.
One of the first projections of a train coming towards the camera caused the spectators to cry out in fear as they thought they were going to be hit.
Cinema projector (1905-1915)
Fascination2
27
...mmm...AS WELL AS BEING A STETHOSCOPE YOU CAN USE IT
FOR SPYING!
Are you scared of going to the doctor’s? Nowadays, medicine has highly advanced techniques to prevent or cure many illnesses without causing pain: a small camera can be placed in an artery to see if it is constructed and the patient doesn’t feel a thing!
In the past things were a little bit more difficult; as they didn’t know that microbes or viruses caused illnesses, they used to use ‘magic’ remedies and superstitions that rarely worked.
In the exhibition you can see old and hair-raising surgical instruments!
than curePrevention better
Ascultation is used by doctors to listen to your heart and lungs and check your health.
Stethoscopes have been used for this purpose for 150 years.
fSantiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) won the first Nobel Prize for medicine in 1906 for discovering the cells that make up our brain: neurones.
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Electrotherapy equipment (1880-1900)
Surely you have heard of the novel Frankenstein, in which a doctor brings a dead body back to life by giving it electrical shocks. However, this electrotherapy machine was used to apply electrical shocks in order to cure nervous disorders.
Throughout the 19th century many different types of electrotherapy equipment was designed, with some of the pieces that were easily transported or handled being truly ingenious.
The one you can see in the picture gives a slight tingling for therapeutic purposes when you hold the electrodes.
// electrotherapy... and visit to the dentist in the past
29
ANAESTHESIA
Since ancient times surgeons have tried to numb pain by using substances like opium or pressing down on the nerves of the limb to be operated on, although the anaesthetic methods were not very effective...
Do you like going to the dentist’s? Probably not, but you need to go every six months to prevent common tooth diseases like tooth decay.
Did you know that in the past the barber or bleeder did other things like pull out teeth (the only option open when a tooth or wisdom tooth was in bad shape)?
Just think how lucky you are compared to the patients of centuries gone by!
Prevention better than cure
Dentist’s chair and unit (around 1920)
3
DID YOU KNOW
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The famous spanish sailor Blas de Lezo, who resisted the conquest of cartagena de indias in america by the british at the beginning of the 18th century, had one of his legs amputated when he was only 15.That didn’t stop him leading large armies though!
Medical remedies which we have depended on since the 20th century were unknown to our predecessors. For this reason, when someone was seriously injured in battle they opted for a terrible and drastic solution: amputation. Doctor-surgeons had scissors, clamps and amputation saws like those on show in the museum.
Amputation saws (18th century) were used much before modern anaesthetics (ether, chloroform) so the most valuable quality for a surgeon was... speed!
// instruments for surgery or torture?
Imagine how this bullet extractor was used (18th century)
DID YOU KNOW
31
Cleanliness prevents diseases. This was not known about in the Middle Ages, as people threw their toilet waste into the street and shouted ‘Water coming…!’ So, it’s not difficult to see how epidemics like the bubonic plague spread, causing more than 20 million deaths in Europe in the 14th century.
Spittoons were containers for people to use instead of spitting in the street and therefore, avoid spreading tuberculosis, for example. Some were silver and could even be carried in your pocket!
This large ceramic urinal (1870-1920), was used in festivals as a ‘portable urinal’. The user would put a cloak around themselves to avoid the public gaze.
// hygiene
Silver spittoon (1880-1910)
Prevention better than cure3
33
Throughout history, technology has made life more comfortable: from the machines employed in the Middle Ages to construct cathedrals, to the sophisticated robots used in automobile manufacturing.
In the exhibition you will be able to see what technology was like in the past: gramophones, machines to record sound, and if you are a fan of modern means of communication such as the internet, you will be surprised by the old crystal radios, telephones or the first television set, made in around 1930.
Although it looks very similar, this robot is not Wall-E, the friendly cleaning robot from the
2008 Disney film. Its resemblance is striking, but this vehicle (or astromobile) is ‘Curiosity’,
sent to the surface of Mars in 2011, after the film came out. In this case it could be said that life
and space mission ‘imitate’ art.
Techno-evolution
fThe image shows the launch of Apollo 11 towards the Moon in 1969. Thanks to technology humans have conquered space.
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You must have heard of Alexander Graham Bell. Although the invention of the telephone is always attributed to the Italian Antonio Meucci, it was the Scotsman Bell who first marketed the telephone in 1876.
At that time, calls could only be made inside palaces or official offices. Its discovery was so important that even the Queen of England asked to try out this extraordinary invention!
By the start of the 20th century large telephone companies had already set up landlines, which were taken over in number by mobiles in the year 2000.
Today it is almost impossible to imagine a world where we could not call anyone we wanted at any moment and from any distance. To appreciate this great technological advance you just have to think that in the 16th century a message from the King of Spain took months to get to America... it would have been so much easier to call!
This tabletop telephone (1894-1900) was also known as a ‘skeleton phone’
as its internal structure was visible.
// the telephone
35
This field telephone (1903-1920) was used in military telecommunications. It is characterised by its design, with everything needed contained in a small lightweight box.
“Mr. Watson, come here, i want to see you”. This was the first sentence spoken over the telephone in 1876, by the scotsman Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant, who was in another room.
Wall telephone (around 1910). This type of wall telephone was very popular in Spain. Turning the crank rang the bell at the switchboard and unlike other models at the time, the earpiece and mouthpiece were joined.
Techno-evolution4
DID YOU KNOW
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John Baird was the first to manage to send images through waves in 1926. The signal was passed via radio or cable. The first transatlantic television retransmission was between London and New York in 1928.
The small screen on the right of this television set showed the retransmitted image in red and black, not particularly well either, but at that time it was revolutionary!
The first known photograph of the image generated by John Baird’s television set (around 1926) was taken by his partner Oliver Hutchinson.
‘Baird’ television set (around 1930)
Based on the research by Heinrich Hertz, in around 1901 Guglielmo Marconi sent the first radio transmission between the island of Terranova and England. Perfected throughout the 20th century, the transmission of signals via electromagnetic waves continues to be one of mankind’s most important means of communication.
One hundred years ago, radio receivers did not work with small transistors, but with lamps that overheated and often melted.
‘Telefunken’ radio receiver (around 1930)
// television and radio
37
The first attempt to record and reproduce sound was with mechanical musical instruments. Since then numerous attempts were made to capture it, until in the 19th century the American Thomas Alva Edison invented the phonograph, which later would morph into the gramophone.
You probably also know about other old devices to store sound, such as vinyl records that your parents used (and are still used today by some music-lovers).
Since the end of the 20th century and until the start of the 21st century the different ways of storing sound have multiplied the possibilities of listening to music. You have probably heard music in an MP3 format or from online streaming! Edison wouldn’t have known where to start...
// recorded sound
The Mikiphone (1920-1930) is a gramophone with a very peculiar size and shape. It is kept inside a round box like a large pocket watch. Despite its size and compact design, it was a quality piece of equipment that faithfully reproduced music.
Techno-evolution4
39
Can you imagine if the objects that are in the rooms of your house became museum pieces and all of the world could see them? Maybe in time it could happen! This room shows tiffin tins, computers, radio receivers, television sets, telephones, records, vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, and even a sweet-making machine! All the pieces are an old-fashioned version of many objects that we all have in our houses today. If they seem a little strange or too big, imagine what the children living in 100 years’ time will think of the ones we are using today.
New domestic technologies available will allow for even
more free time.
Home, sweet home
fSpace dedicated to the kitchen in “Home, sweet home”. MUNCYT museum in Alcobendas.
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In 1887 Emile Berliner constructed a gramophone, similar to a phonograph, but the sound was recorded on lacquered records in place of cylinders and it was the direct ascendant of the record-player.
Some of them were really big, such as the Mammut gramophone which was used in dance halls.
// sounds from yesterday
Mammut gramophone (1907-1914)
This large horn or bell was not included on gramophones until the beginning of the 20th century.They also included bigger wooden boxes which stored larger and longer-lasting springs.Can you imagine how good they must have sounded?
DID YOU KNOW
41
Bet this pressure cooker doesn’t look anything like the one you have at home. However, it worked on exactly the same principles, although the modern ones cook food much faster.
Irons in the past were made of solid iron and were heated with a gas flame.
You have probably taken food to school before in one of the infamous Tupperware boxes; in the middle of the 20th century they would have used these tiffin tins to transport hot and home-made food.
They weighed more than Tupperware boxes because they were made of metal and the base had a space for coal embers which kept them hot.
Look at the picture on the 20th century recipe book, the pressure cooker looks exactly the same as the one we have in the exhibition.
// domestic technology
Iron (1920-1930)
Pressure cooker (around 1925)
Tiffin tin (around 1915)
Home, sweet home5
DID YOU KNOW
43
Leonardo da Vinci, Edison, Graham Bell... You must have heard of many of these wonderful inventors. Spain has also had a few (and still has) great scientists in charge of important inventions, for example Juan de la Cierva and Leonardo Torres Quevedo.
This room in the National Museum of Science and Technology has a portable X-ray machine designed by Mónico Sánchez at the beginning of the 20th century, who was born in Piedrabuena (Ciudad Real) and even presented his scientific achievements in New York.
fSpanish engineer Mónico Sánchez Moreno presented his portable X-ray machine in Madison Square Garden in New York in 1909.
innovationSpanish
The astronomer Azarquiel (1029-1087) from Toledo constructed a universal astrolabe
in the 9th century. Arabs, who lived in Spain for eight centuries, left a legacy of many
scientific words: algebra, zero, alidade, alcohol... as well as he numbering
system that we currently use.
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Scientists observe natural phenomena and perform experiments to better understand the world around us.
Technologists, with their ideas, make our dreams come true: fly, travel to the bottom of the sea, and communicate from afar...
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was an architect, painter, sculptor and scientist. He designed flying artefacts, war machines...
// what do scientists do?UNTIL THE PARACHUTE
IS INVENTED I’M NOT GOING TO TRY
TO FLY AGAIN!
The French chemist Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) identified the microorganisms that cause disease and created vaccines against some of them, like rabies..
Marie Sklodowska-Curie (1867-1934) received two Nobel Prizes, both for discovering and studying new radioactive elements: radium and polonium.
45
Spain has also produced scientists and engineers who have overcome challenges and solved puzzles. Here are some examples.
In 1923 the gyroplane, invented by the engineer Juan de la Cierva, flew for the first time. It is similar to a plane, but the aircraft lifts off the ground using rotary blades which are not powered by a motor, but by the rush of air when the gyroplane advances, like a paper windmill.
Thanks to the ideas of Juan de la Cierva we can see helicopters flying in the skies today.
Following the steps of Narciso Monturiol (1819-1885), who constructed the Ictineo I, the first Spanish submarine, Isaac Peral (1851-1895) designed a modern electric-propelled submarine.
Sketch of the gyroplane drawn by Juan de la Cierva
// Spanish science
Isaac Peral’s submarine (1888)
Spanish innovation6
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Now we know that X-rays are electromagnetic radiation like visible light, but with more energy, and that is why it can pass through flesh, but is less dense than bones, so if we take a ‘photograph’ with this radiation (x-ray), we can see a person’s skeleton.
In the images you can see a discharge tube (1930-1950) turned on and off. The portable generator commercialised by Mónico Sánchez was used to light it.
// brilliant discoveries
In 1895, while he was working in his laboratory, the german physicist Wllhelm Röntgen discovered that the discharge tubes emitted an unknown radiation which could go through opaque objects.As he didn’t know what this radiation was exactly, he called it “X rays”.
The discharge tubes are glass tubes filled with gas. When electricity flows across them, they produce a glow whose colour depends on the gas introduced.
This is how today’s fluorescent tubes and neon lights came about.
The tubes that you see in the exhibition were constructed in Sánchez Electrics Laboratory, a company founded in the 1920s by Spanish businessman and innovator Mónico Sánchez Moreno.
DID YOU KNOW
47
X-rays go through the body creating an image on a special plate. Depending on whether they meet bone, muscle, fat or or-gans, you can more or less see shades of whites and greys.
Mónico Sánchez taking an X-ray of a hand. The discharge tube located under the hand of the lady is what emits the X-rays. The generator is what provides the necessary energy.
Radiography of a hand
In the images you can see how X-rays were done in the middle of the 20th century. Today it’s even simpler, but X-rays are the same!
The portable X-ray machine of Mónico Sánchez Moreno saved many lives during the first world war, as because it was small and easy to transport, it could be used on the frontlines.
Portable X-ray machine of Mónico Sánchez (around 1930)
Spanish innovation6
DID YOU KNOW
49
Since ancient times man has been interested in finding faster, safer and more powerful means of transport... Very basic aspects of our daily life revolve around transport: the quality of the food we eat, our internet shopping, even how we ourselves get to school or work depends on cars, planes or the metro.
Transport has also played a vital role in some of mankind’s achievements, for example the arrival of man on the Moon (1969), or the first voyage around the world by Magallanes and Elcano (1519-1522). In the exhibition you can see old cars and motorbikes, and how strange early bicycles looked.
Wheels
Tricycle (1880-1900). We do not know who invented the wheel,
but we do know that it was already used in Mesopotamia (Asia) 5,500 years ago!
fThanks to its lightness of its fibreglass bodywork, the Abarth 2000 prototype won numerous races.
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// by pedalThe first bicycle, the ‘draisine’ or ‘dandy-horse’ was constructed in 1817 by German Baron Von Drais. As it didn’t have pedals you had to move by taking long strides!
This bicycle has fixed gears, which means that if the back wheel moves, the chain and the pedals move too, so when going down a very steep slope these turn very fast and you have to take your feet off the pedals and rest them on the front fork so that they don’t get tangled up. Fixed-gear bicycle (1880-1890)
51
The penny farthing was invented at the end of the 19th century.The front wheel was that big to make each pedal go further. Penny farthings became very popular, although they were not very easy to steer.
Penny Farthing (around 1885)
Wheels7
DID YOU KNOW
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// ...and by motorCars are one of the most used means of transport. The first automobile similar to those which we know today was constructed in 1885 by Karl Benz (1844-1929). It had three wheels and was propelled by a petrol engine, which gave it speeds of 13 kilometres an hour.
This Panhard & Levassor automobile from 1915 could reach a top speed of 50 km/h.
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MV Agusta Motorcycle (around 1956)
Did you know that the make Bultaco was founded by the grandfather of the Spanish motorcycling champion Sete Gibernau? The company mainly made motorcycles for competitions.
Here you can see the engine and the back of the Abarth racing car (1966) that appeared at the beginning of this section. As well as advanced mechanics,
it used cutting-edge materials such as fibreglass and aluminium-magnesium alloys.
Although modern cars include safety features, avoiding driving accidents depends on you. Respect the highway code!
ROAD SAFETY
Wheels7
SPACE AND TIMEROOMCan you imagine how difficult it would be to live in a world where we weren’t able to measure? We wouldn’t know how to calculate the length of days or nights, the time the Sun took to go down, how much of a field we want to cultivate, or if there is space between the continents. We would feel as lost as we would be in the middle of space!
Astrolabes, clocks, celestial and terrestrial globes, theodolites, rulers and other fascinating instruments invented by man over the centuries made it possible for us to understand our environment. In this room you will discover the distant relations of the sophisticated orientation tools that we have today, including the mobile phone.
Astrolabes
Time
Navigation
Mathematics
Topography
Drawing
Calculation
Telescopes
Heavens and Earth
access to LABORATORY exhibition
you are here
SPACE AND TIMEROOM
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Look at the numbers that appear to the side of the images to see exactly where you can find them in the room!
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One of the first things that humans did was raise their gaze to the heavens and marvel at the beauty of the sky. Among the many mythological explanations that we can find throughout history, is that for the Scandinavians, for example, the Milky Way was the way to Paradise. Astronomers like Galileo Galilei in the 17th century observed the sky more rigorously, with old-fashioned telescopes like those you can see in the exhibition.
Astronomy and mathematics were very useful in ancient times because sailors oriented themselves at sea from the position of the stars; they were also necessary to build a sundial or to draw the map of an island. Thanks to modern technology we already know that the Universe was created from the Big Bang thousands of millions of years ago!
clocks and mathematicsThousands of stars,
From Earth the sky cannot be observed well due to clouds, pollution and light
from cities. To get around these obstacles a telescope called Hubble was sent into space.
In 1993 several astronauts were sent to correct problems with its mirrors,
as you can see in the image.
fThe Sun is one of the hundreds of thousands of stars that form our galaxy, the Milky Way.
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In ancient times, the main means of transport was by boat. However, it was very difficult to pilot. Imagine you are the captain of a galleon on the high seas. How do you know where you are or where you are heading? Sailors oriented themselves at sea by observing the stars and the Sun; depending on their position you would know where the boat was on the Earth. For example, the higher the Pole Star above the horizon, the nearer you are to the North Pole. Here are some instruments to observe the night sky.
The astrolabe is an instrument that was invented by the Greeks and had many uses: to calculate the time or date, the time the Sun rose or set, heights of buildings, to orient oneself at sea...
// crossing the seas
Astrolabe attributed to Gualterius Arsenius (around 1560)
The cross-staff looked very similar to a crossbow.
Captain using the cross-staff
Cross-staff constructed by Gualterius Arsenius (1563)
Thousands of stars
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The astrolabe and the cross-staff became outdated when the backstaff appeared, having been invented by the Englishman John Davis at the end of the 16th century. Finally in the 18th century, the sextant was invented (a modification of the octant) which could make easy and accurate observations through a telescope and two mirrors. The backstaff shown in the museum is from the 18th century.
To know the boat’s course, sailors used a compass, invented in China two thousand years ago. A compass is little more than a magnet in the form of a needle. The Earth is like a giant magnet, whose north and south poles attract the needles, so that one of its ends always points north, wherever we are.
We are now very lucky that we can orient ourselves exactly by the GPS (Global Positioning System) system, a network of 24 North-American satellites (completed in 1994) which orbit the Earth and allow the exact position of any point to be determined. Also the Google Earth program, made up of satellite images, aerial photographs and geographical models, even allows you to travel in ‘three dimensions’ to any point on the planet through the internet.
Backstaff (1759) Octant made in the 18th century
I DON’T KNOW ‘WITCH’
WAY NORTH IS!!!
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Since ancient times man has needed to measure time, whether it be to plan the sowing or harvesting of crops or to perform ritual ceremonies.
The oldest known sundial belonged to the Pharaoh Thutmosis III who lived around the time of A.C. 1500.
They were very simple to make, as they were no more than a vertical or slanted bar (called a gnomon) whose cast shadow indicated the time. Very complicated calculations had to be done beforehand for it to show it correctly.
// SundialsOH ANUBIS! I’M LATE!!
Here you can see two types of equinoctial rings from the 18th century. The one on the right includes a compass as it had to be pointing north.
The equinoctial ring could be adjusted depending where you were in the world to tell the correct time, unlike other sundials, which only worked for a certain area in the world.
Thousands of stars
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As well as sundials, man invented sand timers, clepsydras (water clocks) and mechanical clocks that worked with weights and a pendulum.
Finally the development of electronics allowed us all to have accurate watches on our wrists that indicate the passage of time from the oscillations of a quartz crystal.
Nowadays clocks are a symbol of exactness, even if the mechanical clocks of 500 years ago lost half an hour a day!
// precise times
The most accurate clocks are atomic clocks, which are based on the frequency of the radiation emitted by certain elements, such as caesium for example. While a digital clock
loses a few seconds each year, caesium clocks lose less than a second every million years! The clock in the image, which uses ytterbium instead of caesium, is ten times more accurate.
The first mechanical clocks were used in monasteries in the Middle Ages (13th century). Not only did they tell the time, but they also showed prayer times. After this they started to construct mechanical clocktowers so that the whole town or city knew what time it was. As a source of energy to move the machinery they used weights wound around a pulley which made them turn.
DID YOU KNOW
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The weight, on falling, turns the cylinder faster and faster, which is attached to a mechanism known as escapement. This releases and catches a tooth of the
escapement’s escape wheel gear with each swing of the pendulum, transmitting the movement of the cylinder through toothed wheels of different sizes, which turn to move the hands.
Try and identify each one of these items in the machinery on show in the exhibition.
From the middle of the 17th century the pendulum started to be used to mark the passage of time. In the laboratory you can see the different types of pendulums and one (the longest one) which takes a whole second to swing to and fro.
These are the weights and the machinery of a bell-tower clock built in the second half of the 19th century.
EXPERIMENT!
Thousands of stars
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Seafarers needed very precise watches to measure the time they were at sea and also to know their position and not get lost. For this reason there were big competitions with large prizes for the person who could make a watch that didn’t lose or gain time: the first person who did
so, in the 18th century, was the English watchmaker John Harrison (1693-1776), solving the problem of longitude.
Until the 16th century navigation was only for the brave. With no suitable scientific instruments, the seas and oceans had hardly been explored, and were surrounded by inscriptions which marked out unchartered or unknown territories, with drawings on the maps of dragons, giant sea serpents, islands inhabited by
fantastical creatures and frozen seas. Luckily, instruments like the cross-staff, sextant, the radio latino geometric square
measuring instrument, astrolabes, precision clocks, watches and timepieces (like those you can see on display) kicked off the period of scientific navigation of the oceans, converting all of these serious and evil monsters into beautiful legends that illustrate the old maps. And all thanks to scientific progress.
This clock has this name because you can see all of its inner workings or its ‘skeleton’. It is made of gilded bronze, with fantastical enamel work and three clock faces: one which reflected the lunar calendar and another two which included the time and the calendar established by the French Revolution. Did you know that then the names of the months were changed in line with agriculture and other natural phenomena? Windous, Rainous or Floweral would be the translation of some of their names into English according to the historian Thomas Carlyle..
Marine chronometer constructed by J. R. Losada (around 1850). This had a suspension system that protected it against sharp movements, such as those that occur when firing cannons.
Skeleton’ clock by Laurent made around 1800
Close-up of the ‘Sea Chart’ by Olaus Magnus (16th century)
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The quintessential astronomical instrument is the telescope, discovered by chance around 1600 by an apprentice of an optical workshop in the Netherlands.
This apprentice realised that, by looking down two glasses lenses at the same time, far away objects could be seen much closer.
No sooner was the telescope invented it was considered a secret weapon that could be used for war, but its existence quickly became known about and the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei made one, being the first person to observe the sky with it.
Lens-based telescopes are called refraction telescopes, because the lenses bend the light rays, and this bending is called refraction.
// observing the universe
Refracting telescope made by Jesse Ramsden between 1774 and 1780
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There are also telescopes which use mirrors to focus light, and these are called reflecting telescopes, as the mirrors reflect the light.
The Hubble space telescope, for example, is a reflecting telescope.
If you have a telescope or some binoculars, NEVER look at the sun directly through them as they concentrate light on your eye and you could go blind, like galileo.
WARNING FOR ASTRONOMY FANS!
Reflecting telescope made by James Short around 1750
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“And yet it moves...”Since Ptolemy, the 2nd century Greek astronomer, it was believed that the Earth stood still in the centre of the universe and the planets and the Sun circled it. Thinking remained like this for religious reasons, as anyone who thought differently was persecuted by the Inquisition, an ecclesiastical tribunal that imprisoned and executed those who spoke against the Catholic faith.
Galileo Galilei’s observations using a telescope demonstrated that, effectively, the Sun was the thing that stayed still in the centre of the Solar System (as had already been proposed by Copernicus 50 years previously). For this reason, Galileo was judged and obliged to change his ideas, even though he was right! It is told that, after denying his discovery to save his life, Galileo murmured: “And yet, it moves...” (“Eppur si muove”), referring to the Earth.
This astronomer’s chair from 1872 was designed with an ergonomic backrest so for greater comfort during the long hours of observation.
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The Tellurion is a representation of the system formed by the Sun, the Earth and the Moon which shows their movements to explain the phases of the Moon, the seasons, and the night and day cycles. This piece is from the IES Cardenal Cisneros in Madrid.
If you look closely, this tellurion no longer has the Moon. It is a pity but sometimes objects arrive at the museum incomplete or deteriorated.
Tellurion made by George Adams (around 1789)
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3rd
EXERCISE
When it comes to making a journey, it is important to know the lay of the land. This is the aim of cartography, which is the science of designing maps and navigational charts.
Research in the museum.Look at the southern hemisphere of the planisphere. Compare it with the current map of the world. Why is it different?
Here’s a clue: find out who captain James Cook was and what he found out. If you can’t find him, the solution is on the last page .
Terrestrial planisphere (around 1630). Northern hemisphere (to the left) and southern hemisphere (to the right).
// the Earth is huge!
Thousands of stars
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The theodolite is an essential instrument for topography, which measures horizontal and vertical angles. This piece comes from one of the most prestigious precision instrument-making workshops in England.
DARN CABIN BOY!! USE A THEODOLITE
OR YOU’LL BE KEEPING THE SHARKS COMPANY!
George Adams’ Theodolite (1760-1770)
The Earth has a surface area of 500 million square kilometres: 50 billion football pitches side by side!
DID YOU KNOW
LABORATORYSince the Ancient Greeks, man has been collecting the scientific instruments that it invented and developed. In the Museum laboratory you can see a collection of scientific instruments from the end of the 19th century. These were used to study the atmosphere, heat, waves, optics and many other types of physical and chemical phenomena.
As well as discovering these curious and interesting objects, you can also become a real scientist (from the 21st century) trying out the different interactive modules around the exhibition. You can create sea waves and streams of bubbles, test the speed of a football or look at the amazing visual effects of the plasma globe!
ROOM
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Atmosphere
Heat
Electrostatics
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Electromagnetism
Sound
Waves
Optics
Electromagnetic Waves
Liquids
Solids
Batteries
Energy
Perception
Particles
Chemistry
Machines
Pendulums
Look at the numbers that appear to the side of the images to see exactly where you can find them in the room!
ROOM
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Predicting the weather is something that interests us not only if we want to go out; it is also necessary in planning crops or taking precautions before a tornado. To predict what the weather will do in the future, meteorologists need to know that the weather is doing now, in terms of temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity...
In the exhibition you can see some instruments used to measure these factors, such as anemometers (wind gauges), barometers and thermometers.
Every cloud has a silver lining
You are probably used to listening to the weather forecast on the news: it uses the information obtained by satellites
like the Meteosat series.
fMeteorologists can still not predict when and where a tornado will form.
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A barometer measures atmospheric pressure.
It consists of a glass tube placed in a container with mercury. The atmospheric pressure on the liquid means that it travels up the tube to a certain height. The variations in the atmospheric pressure are detected as changes in the height of the column of liquid.
// how does a barometer work?
When the pressure drops a depression (storm) is coming, while when it rises an anticyclone is approaching (good weather).
Fortin Barometer (1820-1830)
GREAT MANITOU! PRESSURE RISING! I’LL HAVE TO START
ORGANISING THE RAINDANCE.
GREAT MANITOU! PRESSURE RISING! I’LL HAVE TO START
ORGANISING THE RAINDANCE.
BAD WEATHER
LOW PRESSURE
LIQUID DROPS
GOOD WEATHER
HIGH PRESSURE
LIQUID RISES
PRESSURE
PRESSURE
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Sometimes the Earth treats us badly with tornados, floods…
However, other planets in our Solar System are much less welcoming!
Venus has sulphuric acid, on Mars there are dust storms that cover the whole planet and on Jupiter there has been a tornado for 300 years that is several times bigger than the Earth: the Great Red Spot.
// what’s the weather like on Jupiter?
Have you heard of the “el niño”?It is a meteorological phenomenon that is a band of warm water in the Pacific Ocean. It disrupts the climate of the whole planet and causes droughts and floods.
Every cloud has a silver lining
DID YOU KNOW
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Hygrometers are used to determine the humidity of the environment. The one in the picture works by the rapid and continuous cooling by evaporation of a volatile liquid, a method known as the dew point.
Regnault’s hygrometer (1860-1890)
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Dew is produced when the temperature decreases sharply and the humidity in the air condenses in the form of small drops.
If the temperature drops lower than 0°C then these drops freeze, giving the appearance of frost, which covers everything with a pretty white blanket on many a winter morning.
- Nimbostratus is a dark grey cloud which produces continuous rainfall or snowfall. They are so dense they completely block out the Sun.
- Cirrocumulus is a thin rippled layer of white clouds formed by ice crystals.
- Cumulonimbus is a very large cloud shaped a bit like a whale’s tail coming out of the water and they cause huge storms. If you see one of these make sure you have your umbrella with you!
// compass” clouds
Cumulonimbus Nimbostratus Cirrocumulus
Every cloud has a silver lining
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For a long time heat was a mystery for science. What is it? Why does heat only pass from hot matter to cold matter and never the other way around? A great step forward in understanding heat came when scientists realised about the relationship between heat and movement, easily observed by noting that friction heats matter up.
An essential instrument in the Industrial Revolution was the steam engine, which used the water vapour obtained from heating water to produce movement.
Warmer, warmer
About 250,000 years ago, our ancestors the Homo erectus, managed to get a fire
started by quickly rubbing together two sticks or knocking flints together
to produce a flame.
fSunspots are regions of the Sun which are colder than the rest of the Sun’s surface, which is at about 5000°C!
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In this image taken from a 19th century textbook, you can see what the scientific experiment would look like if you used the two parabolic mirrors in the exhibition together. One has the source of heat and the other has some sort of material which burns easily.
Parabolic mirrors are not the usual kind we normally use to look at our reflections in. They are different from a normal mirror in that they are not flat, but concave (curved inwards), so if you look at yourself in it, your image will be distorted. It is of interest because light rays that bounce around inside it concentrate on one point, which becomes very hot.
Parabolic mirror (1920-1940)
DID YOU KNOW
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Warmer, warmer
They say that Archimedes (287-212 A.C.), on seeing the Romans were ready to attach the city of Syracuse, managed to set fire to enemy ships thanks to a large parabolic mirror. He concentrated the Sun’s rays on the sails of General Marcelo’s ships and saved the city from a Roman siege.
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In the Middle Ages, man used the power of wind, water or their own strength to grind grain (windmills, waterwheels) or to travel (sailboats).
The steam engine, perfected by James Watt in the 18th century, freed man from this hard work and set into motion factories, boat propellers and locomotives.
Model of steam engine (1890-1910)
The power of machine is measured in watts (W) in honour of the Scotsman James Watt (1736-1819).
// steam power
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1º The tubes with hot air evaporate the water. 2º This steam passes alternately to both sides of a piston, whose motion backwards and forwards is transmitted to the wheels. 3º The smoke and water vapour leave by the chimney.
In a pressure cooker, the temperature for boiling water increases, and therefore, food is cooked at a higher temperature more quickly.
Papin’s digester, also known as a steam digester, was designed by the French scientist Denis Papin and is the earlier version of today’s pressure cookers. Papin’s digester (1825-1843)
// how does a steam engine work?
WATER GOES IN
WATER TANK
piston
Warmer, warmer
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Imagine what our lives would be like without electricity: without light, electrical appliances, computers... However, although we have known about electrical and magnetic phenomenon since the Ancient Greeks, until a few centuries ago we were not able to harness these natural forces. In fact, the first electrical battery was created by Volta in 1800.
Nowadays, electricity is generated in hydroelectric, nuclear, thermal, solar power plants... in enormous amounts to satisfy our needs.
Electrifying!
As thermal power plants are very polluting (the electricity
is produced by burning coal, oil or gas) and nuclear creates hazardous waste,
renewables are also used like hydraulic, wind and solar energy which are luckily
increasingly more important in obtaining electrical energy. The International Space Station (photographed from the Discovery
space shuttle) has solar panels. fWhen clouds become charged with a lot of electricity, they end up discharging it against the Earth. The lightning bolt is the route that the electricity follows to the ground.
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Wimshurst machine (1890-1910)
The first electrical machines (17th century) produced electricity through friction: rotating glass discs turned and brushed against metallic brushes.
The electricity obtained would accumulate in the brass spheres, with electrical sparks jumping between the gap.
This is the same thing that happens when you rub a pen on a jumper: it gets char-ged with electricity and can then attract paper, hair...
// electric machines
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Electrifying!
Afterwards, the electricity could be stored in Leyden jars, which are glass jars filled with gold leaves. When the inside of the bottle was put in contact with the brass spheres, part of the electricity passed to the bottle because metals are good conductors, meaning they let electricity pass through them very easily.
Leyden jar (1850-1860). Look at how the inside is full of gold leaves.
The electrical battery, invented by Alessandro Volta in 1800, was made up of a column of discs of two different metals stacked alternately; between each couple of discs was a piece of paper or felt soaked in vinegar or salt water. One of the metals gave electrons to another and as such produced a continuous current of electricity. Modern batteries use different materials but the idea is the same. In honour of Volta the ‘energy’ of a battery is measured in volts.
Volta’s battery (1835-1853)
Alessandro Volta (1745-1827)
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Gramme’s magneto-electric machine produced electricity from magnetism: by turning a coil of wire between two poles of a magnet an electrical current was generated between them.
This phenomenon is used nowadays in electrical power stations. The force to move the coil comes from water (hydroelectric power stations), wind (wind farms) or the pressure of steam (thermal or nuclear power stations).
Gramme’s magnetoelectric machine (1880-1885)
When you have finished with batteries, don’t just throw them away anywhere! They contain very toxic and harmful elements for living beings.
ADVIDE FOR GOOD RECYCLING!
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When a piece of electrical equipment receives more electricity than it can handle it breaks.
These instruments are used to measure the amount of electricity that circulates around a wire (in other words, the electrical current).
The current is measured in amperes (amps) in honour of André-Marie Ampere (1775-1836).
// measuring electricity
Equipment to ‘weigh’ currents (1890-1900)
Schweigger’s multiplier (1880-1900) Nobili’s astatic galvanometer (1845-1880)
Electrifying!
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Some animals such as the electric ray or the electric catfish are capable of producing electricity. Electric fish have been known about since ancient times: they are represented in some Egyptian burial tombs and the Romans used rays to cure illnesses with their electrical discharges.
The case of the electric eel is impressive: this freshwater fish, which lives in South and Central America, can grow up to 1.80m and is a living battery (its head is the positive terminal and its tail is the negative).
Its shocks of 800 volts can kill people!
// natural electricity
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In the June of 1752, the American scientist Benjamin Franklin flew a kite with a metal key on it which was able to collect electricity from the clouds, thus demonstrating that lightning volts were an electrical phenomenon and laying the basis for the subsequent construction of lightning conductors.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Electrifying!
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Mechanics is the science that studies how things move and work machines. It is a very important discipline because it explains things from how planets and planes move to how you have to build a bridge so that it doesn’t fall down. One of the first people to study mechanics and probably the most famous mathematician and engineer of Ancient Greece was Archimedes. He is thought to have been the creator of various mechanical inventions, such as the complex pulley or the lever, siege engines for war and Archimedes’ screw which bears his name.
In the exhibition you can also see a pneumatic machine which created a vacuum and investigate how matter behaves in the absence of air.
Machines and forces
One of the most evident phenomena of mechanics is that things fall towards the Earth.
This is due to gravity, the force that makes all bodies with mass be drawn to each other. This is why an apple falls from the tree attracted by the Earth or the Moon spins around it. This was
explained by the Englishman Isaac Newton (1642-1727) with his famous law of gravity.
fThanks to machine we can carry out huge jobs with little effort as you can see from this tapestry from the 13th century.
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Archimedes, who lived in the third century B.C. used his knowledge of geometry to invent machines. He discovered the law of levers: ‘the longer the lever the less effort it takes to lift a weight’. The law of levers is based on pulleys, pliers, grippers...
// Archimedes the Inventor
GIVE ME SOMETHING TO LEAN ON
AND I WILL MOVE THE WORLD!
Archimedes’ screw (1850-1880). Similar to a corkscrew, it could be used to pump water from a river to a canal
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Machines and forces
Mechanical paradox (1770-1780)
The mystery of the cylinderWe said before that things fall down but in the room we have an object that represents a mechanical paradox.A cylinder that appears to climb uphill by itself (there’s no trick... The table is not sloped and there are no hidden magnets). Do you know what’s going on?You will find the solution at the end of the book.
4rd
EXERCISE
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Pneumatic machines were used in science laboratories to perform experiments inside vacuums. They worked by extracting air from the inside of a bell jar.
These plungers worked like a bike pump, but the valves of the machines are set up so that they only let air out.
Pneumatic machine (1860-1880)
// impressive pressure
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WE’RE GOING TO BE THE LAUGHING STOCK OF ALL THE SUPERHEROES!
grrrrrrrr!WE’RE NO MATCH
FOR ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE!
WE’RE GOING TO BE THE LAUGHING STOCK OF ALL THE SUPERHEROES!
grrrrrrrr!WE’RE NO MATCH
FOR ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE!WE’RE GOING TO BE
THE LAUGHING STOCK OF ALL THE SUPERHEROES!
grrrrrrrr!WE’RE NO MATCH
FOR ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE!
A very famous experiment on vacuums was demonstrated by the Magdeburg hemispheres.It consisted of joining together two hollow hemispheres and making a vacuum inside. They became so stuck together that they could not be pulled apart by teams of horses!
This is because gases (like air) exert force (pres-sure) in all directions.
The suction pads that glaziers use to move large panes of glass could be considered Magdeburg hemispheres, as could the typical sink plungers that you probably have somewhere at home.
Test the force that joins them together.
Machines and forces
DID YOU KNOW
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We are constantly listening to sounds: some are deep like a frog croaking, others are high-pitched like the buzzing of a mosquito, but they all originate in the same way. When a body vibrates (the wings of a mosquito, for example) it transmits that vibration to the air around it. The agitation travels through the air until it reaches our ears, in the same way that if we disturb the water in a puddle ripples spread out all over the surface. These vibrations are what we perceive as sounds.
Did you know that acoustics (the name for the physical sciences that study sound) have very important and very diverse applications? Think of the construction of auditoriums and soundproofing, reproducing sound, medical ultrasounds...
Nnnnoises and soundsss
The record The Sounds of Earth from the Voyager 1 space probe contained images,
sounds and greetings in 56 languages, sending a message to possible
extra-terrestrial civilisations according to the scientist Carl Sagan.
fCover of the gold record sent on Voyager space probes launched into space in 1977. In 2013 Voyager I became the first object made by man to have been abandoned in the Solar System. It is still continuing on its journey.
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Sound travels through air at 343 m/s, but if there is no air it cannot be transmitted, as is proven if we place a bell inside a bell jar and connect it to a vacuum pump.
As the air is removed the sound gets quieter. When there is a complete vacuum, the bell can no longer be heard.
// the speed of sound
Bell jar and bell for experiments to show how sound cannot travel in a vacuum (18th -19th centuries)
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If you look closely, the acoustic bellows that appear on this page look like a flute, don’t they?Well, one of the ancient greek gods, Dionysus (equivalent to the roman bacchus) included among his entourage the half-god Pan who lived in the woods, looked after shepherds and played the panpipes called syrinx which were very similar to this instrument.When Pan became angry, he scared sheep and caused ‘panic’, which is where the word originates from!
Representation of the god Pan in a fresco painting in Pompeii Acoustic bellows with sound tubes (1865-1885)
On working the bellows, where the air is stored, the sound tubes produce different notes depending on their length, given that the longer the tube, the lower the pitch and vice-versa.
DO YOU KNOW WHO THE GOD ‘PAN’ WAS
Nnnnoises and soundsss
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Light is a phenomenon that has always fascinated us; even the Aztecs and the Egyptians adored the Sun for being the star that gives us light.
Now scientists know that light is also a wave like sound, but much faster: while sound travels through the air at 343 m/s (some aeroplanes even fly faster), light is a million times faster (and travels round the world in a tenth of a second)!
Nowadays scientists have at their disposal a very powerful and special kind of light: lasers which are used in surgery and communications for example.
Let there be light
In 1879 Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. It consisted of a carbonised
thread of cotton sealed inside a glass acuum tube. As electricity circulated
though the thread, it glowed.
fLook closely when you see a rainbow, there is always another one nearby!
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Light rays travel in a straight line, but bend when passing through a transparent body such as a prism or a lens: this is called refraction.
For this reason a spoon appears to bend in a glass of water; in reality it is the light rays that are bending.
A Fresnel lens is used in lighthouses. This lens sends all the light that it captures in the same direction so its light is visible over longer distances.
Fresnel lens (1860-1880)
// lenses and prisms
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Let there be light
Knowing now that a curved transparent object can become a magnifying glass and concentrate light on one spot,Why do you think it is dangerous to leave glass objects like bottles lying around in the country?
Jesse Ramsden’s set of prisms (around 1770)
White light (like that from the Sun) is actually a mix of coloured light, but when it travels through a prism (or a drop of water) each beam of colour is bent at a different angle, separating out the different colours.
Look at the prisms and you will see the different colours that make up white light.
BE CAREFUL!
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LABORATORYROOM
It was Isaac Newton who at the end of the 17th century discovered that white light is actually made up of different colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
Look at the image that shows the 19th century etching that we have touched up: the beam of light enters one side of the prism and comes out of the other side split up into different colours. After bouncing off the mirrors (each in a different colour) they all focus back onto the same point, what colour would this point be if the light that it starts out as is white?
In the exhibition you can see typical instruments from the 19th century that were used to carry out this same experiment, known as the “decomposition and recomposition of white light “... and there you have the answer to the question!
// colours of light
Light travels at an incredible speed: 300 000 km/s in a vacuum.From the Sun it takes approximately 8 minutes to reach the earth.
Experiment of the decomposition and recomposition of white light
DID YOU KNOW
107
Mirrors for the experiment of recomposing white light (1860-1880)
Rainbows, one of nature’s most spectacular meteorological phenomena, would be seen as a ring and not an arch if you were lucky enough to see it from a flying aeroplane.
Prism (1860-1880)
Let there be light
DID YOU KNOW
The mysterious object is an artillery compass. It was used to calculate the weight of a bullet depending on its material (stone, iron...) And was constructed by the famous military serviceman and mathematician from seville, Luis Collado, in 1584.
EXERCISE
The mysterious cylinder is not mysterious at all, it is pure science. It travels up the slope because it is weighted down with lead on the edge.
3rd
EXERCISE
The strange continent which appears in the southern hemisphere is the imaginary “terra australis incognita”. Until the voyage of captain James Cook between 1772 and 1775, nobody knew what the southern hemisphere was like.
2nd
EXERCISE
A nit seen under an optical microscope from the 18th century. Muncyt collection.
ANSWERS
1st
EXERCISE
4rd
108
· Photograph of the Director of MUNCYT. SINC Agency. Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology.
· The Dance of Apollo with the Muses. Giulio Romano (c. 1540) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. (pag. 5)· Moss seen under a microscope. 18th century. National Museum of Science and Technology Archives. (pag.12)· Pollen (Halimium lasianthum (Lam.) Spach) seen under a scanning electron microscope. María Josefa Jiménez, National Museum of Science and Technology. (pag.13)· Nit seen under a microscope. 18th century. National Museum of Science and Technology Archives. (pag.14)· Footprint of Buzz Aldrin’s boot on the Moon’s surface during the Apollo 11 mission, 20 July 1969. NASA. (pag.19)· Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the Moon’s surface. Photograph by astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, 20 July 1969. NASA. (pag.22)· Picture of Santiago Ramón y Cajal by Eulogia Merle made for the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology. (pag.26)· Take-off of the Apollo 11 space mission from the launch pad camera. 1969. NASA. (pag.32)· Artist’s representation of the Mars Rover Curiosity on the surface of Mars. NASA. (pag.33) · “Child portrait”, by yuryimaging. Image reference: #53711435. Open rights licence Fotolia. (pag.39)· Bellvis Calatayud, Camilo. “360 fórmulas para guisar con la olla express.” First edition. Zaragoza: 1924. (pag.41) · Mónico Sánchez Moreno in Madison Square Garden in Nueva York presenting his work on his portable X-ray machine (1909). Photo given by Mónico Sánchez Moreno’s family. (pag.42)· Gyroplane sketch by Juan de la Cierva. Juan de la Cierva Foundation. (pag.45)· Isaac Peral’s submarine. Naval Museum of Cartagena. (pag.45)· X-rays discharge tube belonging to Mónico Sánchez Moreno. “OFF / ON” Catalogue. Photographed by Yolanda Villaverde López and commissioned by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology. (pag.46)· X-ray of a woman’s hand with Mónico Sánchez Moreno’s portable X-ray machine. Photo given by Mónico Sánchez Moreno’s family. (pag.47)· Mónico Sánchez Moreno X-ray image. Photo given by Mónico Sánchez Moreno’s family. (pag.47)· “Milky Way from La Palma”. Photograph by Óscar Blanco Varela. FOTCIENCIA12, scientific photograph contest held by FECYT and CSIC. (pag.56) · Astronaut F Story Musgrave prepares to go to the highest point of the Hubble Space Telescope to correct the mirror faults. 1993. NASA. (pag.57)· Ytterbium atomic clock. 2013, National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA. (pag.61)· Close-up of Olaus Magnus’ Marine Chart (16th century). [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. (pag.63)· Twin tornados on the Great Plains of the United States. 28 September 2010. NOAA Legacy Photo; OAR/ERL/Wave Propagation Laboratory. (pag.72)· Dust storm on the Canary Islands from the Sahara desert. 12 December 2003. NASA/GSFC. (pag.73)· Old storm in Jupiter’s atmosphere. NASA. (pag.75)· Nimbostratus. Image ID: wea02041, photographer Ralph F Kresge. NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) Collection. (pag.77) · Cirrocumulus. Image ID: wea00058, photographer Ralph F Kresge. NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) Collection. (pag.77) · Cumulonimbus. Image ID: wea00102, photographer Ralph F Kresge. NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) Collection. (pag.77) · “A glance at the Sun”. Photograph by Valentín Tinguaro Díaz Alemán. FOTCIENCIA11, scientific photograph contest held by FECYT and CSIC (pag.78) · “Atmospheric Energy”. Photograph by Duncan Wingen Sánchez. FOTCIENCIA12, scientific photograph contest held by FECYT and CSIC. (pag.84)· The International Space Station photographed from the Discovery Space Launcher. NASA. (pag.85)· Representation of a rolling crane in a tapestry (13th century), constructed in Guédelon in Treigny. (pag.92)· “Sounds of the Earth” golden record sleeve sent on the two Voyager space probes launched into space in 1977. NASA/JPL. (pag.98) · “Sounds of the Earth” golden record sleeve sent on the two Voyager space probes launched into space in 1977. NASA. (pag.99)· Representation of the god Pan on a fresco in a Roman villa in Pompeii. (pag.101) · “Monumental rainbow. Double rainbow in Monument Valley”. Photograph by Mª Ángeles Millán Álvarez. FOTCIENCIA12 scientific photograph contest held by FECYT and CSIC. (pag.102)
// photo credits
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
C/ Pintor Velázquez, 5 · 28100 Alcobendas, Madrid · www.muncyt.es · [email protected]
