Misplaced Pages

#857142

58-742: At least two Pegasus machines survive today: one in The Science Museum, London and one which was displayed in the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester but which has now been moved to the storage in the Science Museum archives at Wroughton. The Pegasus in The Science Museum, London ran its first program in December 1959 and was regularly demonstrated until 2009 when it developed a severe electrical fault. In early 2014,

116-679: A lucrative clientele. The work of the Adam brothers set the style for domestic architecture and interiors for much of the latter half of the 18th century. Robert and James Adam travelled in Italy and Dalmatia in the 1750s, observing the ruins of the classical world. On their return to Britain, they set themselves up with their older brother, John , as architects. Robert and James published a book entitled The Works in Architecture in instalments between 1773 and 1779. This book of engraved designs made

174-527: A price of £50,000 for Pegasus 1, which did not have magnetic tape drives , line printer or punched card input and output. The modular design with plug-in units of hardware did, however, make it very reliable by the standards of the day, and maintenance was "a doddle of a job". In its second year of use in 1958–9, the Pegasus at King's College (part of Durham University ) in Newcastle upon Tyne had

232-418: A scientific twist". Up to 380 children aged between 7 and 11, accompanied by adults, are invited to spend an evening performing fun "science based" activities and then spend the night sleeping in the museum galleries amongst the exhibits. In the morning, they're woken to breakfast and more science, watching a show before the end of the event. On the evening of the last Wednesday of every month (except December)

290-582: A screen measuring 24.3 by 16.8 metres, with both a dual IMAX with Laser projection system and a traditional IMAX 15/70mm film projector, and an IMAX 12-channel sound system. Visitors to the Who Am I? gallery can explore the science of who they are through intriguing objects, provocative artworks and hands-on exhibits. Energy Revolution: The Adani Green Energy Gallery explores how the world can generate and use energy more sustainably to urgently reduce carbon dioxide emissions from global energy systems and limit

348-399: A typical reliability in excess of 98%, and 95.4% overall. The initial version of Pegasus, Pegasus 1 was intended for scientific and engineering applications. Its input was via 5-hole paper tape with output on tape. The variant for business data processing was called Pegasus 2 and could be equipped with punched cards , magnetic tape and line printer . In 1956 the first Pegasus

406-685: A variety of themes concerning the museum's development. The Science Museum consists of two buildings – the main building and the Wellcome Wing. Visitors enter the main building from Exhibition Road, while the Wellcome Wing is accessed by walking through the Energy Hall, Exploring Space and then the Making the Modern World galleries (see below) at ground floor level. The Energy Hall is the first area that most visitors see as they enter

464-517: Is not 'greenwash'". There have been protests against the sponsorship; in May 2021, a group calling themselves 'Scientists for XR' ( Extinction Rebellion ) locked themselves to a mechanical tree inside the museum. The UK Student Climate Network carried out an overnight occupation in June 2021, and were threatened with arrest. In August 2021, members of Extinction Rebellion held a protest inside and outside

522-687: Is one of the funding partners of the museum's STEM Training Academy. Equinor's sponsorship of the Wonderlab exhibit was on the basis that the Science Museum would not make any statement to damage the oil firm's reputation. Shell has influenced how the museum presents climate change in its programme sponsored by the oil company. The museum has signed a gagging clause in its agreement with Shell not to "make any statement or issue any publicity or otherwise be involved in any conduct or matter that may reasonably be foreseen as discrediting or damaging

580-471: The Adam repertory available throughout Europe. The Adam brothers aimed to simplify the rococo and baroque styles which had been fashionable in the preceding decades, to bring what they felt to be a lighter and more elegant feel to Georgian houses. The Works in Architecture illustrated the main buildings the Adam brothers had worked on and crucially documented the interiors, furniture and fittings, designed by

638-629: The National Collections Centre , at the Science Museum Wroughton, in Wiltshire. The Science Museum has a dedicated library, and until the 1960s was Britain's National Library for Science, Medicine and Technology. It holds runs of periodicals, early books and manuscripts, and is used by scholars worldwide. It was, for a number of years, run in conjunction with the library of Imperial College , but in 2007

SECTION 10

#1732776030858

696-819: The South Kensington Museum , together with what is now the Victoria and Albert Museum . It included a collection of machinery which became the Museum of Patents in 1858, and the Patent Office Museum in 1863. This collection contained many of the most famous exhibits of what is now the Science Museum. In 1883, the contents of the Patent Office Museum were transferred to the South Kensington Museum. In 1885,

754-507: The Adam revival was closely linked, was very popular with the expanding middle classes from circa 1880 to 1920. They were attracted to the light and elegant designs, as a contrast to the heavier and more cluttered interiors which had dominated their homes during the second half of the 19th century. The revival competed with the Arts and Crafts style, which continued to be popular in Britain up to

812-738: The Adams. A parallel development of this phase of neoclassical design is the French Louis XVI style . The Adam style moved away from the strict mathematical proportions previously found in Georgian rooms, and introduced curved walls and domes, decorated with elaborate plasterwork and striking mixed colour schemes using newly affordable paints in pea green, sky blue, lemon, lilac, bright pink, and red-brown terracotta. Artists such as Angelica Kauffman and Antonio Zucchi were employed to paint classical figurative scenes within cartouches set into

870-642: The Nation: Perspectives on the History of the Science Museum is a series of individual views by Science Museum staff and external academic historians of different aspects of the Science Museum's history. While it is not a chronological history in the conventional sense, the first five chapters cover the history of the museum from the Brompton Boilers in the 1860s to the opening of the Wellcome Wing in 2000. The remaining eight chapters cover

928-530: The Pegasus included Hugh McGregor Ross and Donald B. Gillies . Science Museum, London The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington , London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom,

986-657: The Science Collections were renamed the Science Museum and in 1893 a separate director was appointed. The Art Collections were renamed the Art Museum , which eventually became the Victoria and Albert Museum. When Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone for the new building for the Art Museum, she stipulated that the museum be renamed after herself and her late husband . This was initially applied to

1044-585: The Science Museum Group) which oversees the Science Museum and other related museums, from 2002: Adam Style The Adam style (also called Adamesque or the Style of the Brothers Adam ) is an 18th-century neoclassical style of interior design and architecture, as practised by Scottish architect William Adam and his sons, of whom Robert (1728–1792) and James (1732–1794) were

1102-524: The Science Museum decided to retire it permanently, effectively ending the life of one of the world's oldest working computers. The Pegasus officially held the title of the world's oldest computer until 2012, when the restoration of the Harwell computer was completed at the National Museum of Computing . In those days it was common for it to be unclear whether a failure was due to the hardware or

1160-605: The Science Museum does not charge visitors for admission, although visitors are requested to make a donation if they are able. Temporary exhibitions may incur an admission fee. It is one of the five museums in the Science Museum Group . The museum was founded in 1857 under Bennet Woodcroft from the collection of the Royal Society of Arts and surplus items from the Great Exhibition as part of

1218-564: The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in London's Guildhall . The Science City 1550–1800: The Linbury Gallery shows how London grew to be a global hub for trade, commerce and scientific enquiry. The Mathematics: The Winton Gallery examines the role that mathematicians have had in building our modern world. In the landing area to access the gallery (stair C) is a working example of Charles Babbage 's Difference engine No.2. This

SECTION 20

#1732776030858

1276-488: The building. On the ground floor, the gallery contains a variety of steam engines , including the oldest surviving James Watt beam engine , which together tell the story of the British Industrial Revolution . Also on display is a recreation of James Watt's garret workshop from his home, Heathfield Hall , using over 8,300 objects removed from the room, which was sealed after his 1819 death, when

1334-589: The command module from the Apollo 10 mission, which are displayed along a timeline chronicling man's technological achievements. A V-2 rocket , designed by German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun , is displayed in this gallery. Doug Millard, space historian and curator of space technology at the museum, states: "We got to the Moon using V-2 technology but this was technology that was developed with massive resources, including some particularly grim ones. The V-2 programme

1392-414: The development of flight in the 20th century. Contained in the gallery are several full sized aeroplanes and helicopters , including Alcock and Brown 's transatlantic Vickers Vimy (1919), Spitfire and Hurricane fighters, as well as numerous aero-engines and a cross-section of a Boeing 747 . It opened in 1963 and was refurbished in the 1990s. Power Up is an interactive gaming gallery showcasing

1450-647: The extra bit that could be used to indicate a breakpoint (optional stop), to assist in debugging . In line with Strachey's second objective, it had a relatively generous instruction set for a computer of its time, but there was no explicit hardware provision for handling either characters or floating-point numbers. The speed of arithmetic operations was about the same as in the Elliott ;402 computer, which could add in 204  microseconds and multiply in 3366 microseconds. The Pegasus basic instruction cycle time for add/subtract/move and logical instructions

1508-515: The goodwill or reputation" of Shell. The museum signed a sponsorship contract with the Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor which contained a gagging clause, stating the museum would not say anything that could damage the fossil fuel company's reputation. The museum's director, Ian Blatchford , defended the museum's sponsorship policy, saying: "Even if the Science Museum were lavishly publicly funded I would still want to have sponsorship from

1566-446: The hall was demolished in 1927. Exploring Space is a historical gallery, filled with rockets and exhibits that tell the story of human space exploration and the benefits that space exploration has brought us (particularly in the world of telecommunications). Making the Modern World displays some of the museum's most remarkable objects, including Puffing Billy (the oldest surviving steam locomotive), Crick's double helix , and

1624-553: The history of video games and consoles from the past 50 years. Visitors can play on over 150 consoles, featuring consoles from the Binatone TV Master to the Play Station 5 . The Tomorrow's World gallery hosts topical science stories and free exhibitions including: The IMAX: The Ronson Theatre is an IMAX cinema which shows educational films (most in 3-D), as well as blockbusters and live events. It features

1682-616: The impact of climate change. The museum has some dedicated spaces for temporary exhibitions (both free and paid-for) and displays, on Level -1 (Basement Gallery), Level 0 (inside the Exploring Space Gallery and Tomorrow's World), Level 1 (Special Exhibition Gallery 1) and Level 2 (Special Exhibition Gallery 2 and The Studio). Most of these travel to other Science Museum Group sites, as well as nationally and internationally. Past exhibitions have included: The Science Museum organises Astronights , "all-night extravaganza with

1740-526: The infill of the East Block and the construction of the Lower & Upper Wellcome Galleries in 1980, and the construction of the Wellcome Wing in 2000 result in the museum now extending to Queen's Gate . The leading academic publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, published the official centenary history of the Science Museum on 14 April 2010. The first complete history of the Science Museum since 1957, Science for

1798-540: The interior walls and ceilings. The Adam's main rivals were James Wyatt , whose many designs for furniture were less known outside the wide circle of his patrons, because he never published a book of engravings; and Sir William Chambers , who designed fewer furnishings for his interiors, preferring to work with such able cabinet-makers as John Linnell , Thomas Chippendale , and Ince and Mayhew . So many able designers were working in this style in London from circa 1770 that

Ferranti Pegasus - Misplaced Pages Continue

1856-684: The library was divided over two sites. Histories of science and biographies of scientists were kept at the Imperial College Library until February 2014 when the arrangement was terminated, the shelves were cleared and the books and journals shipped out, joining the rest of the collection, which includes original scientific works and archives at the National Collections Centre. Dana Research Centre and Library previously an event space and cafe, reopened in its current form in 2015. Open to researchers and members of

1914-461: The most widely known. The Adam brothers advocated an integrated style for architecture and interiors, with walls, ceilings, fireplaces, furniture, fixtures, fittings and carpets all being designed by the Adams as a single uniform scheme. Their style is commonly known under the mistaken plural "Adams style". The Adam style found its niche from the late 1760s in upper-class and middle-class residences in 18th-century England, Scotland, Russia (where it

1972-610: The museum organises an adults only evening with up to 30 events, from lectures to silent discos. Previous Lates have seen conversations with the actress activist Lily Cole and Biorevolutions with the Francis Crick Institute which attracted around 7000 people, mostly under the age of 35. In October 2007, the Science Museum cancelled a talk by the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, James D. Watson , because he claimed that IQ test results showed black people to have lower intelligence than white people. The decision

2030-526: The museum promising to boycott it following sponsorship of the museum's Energy Revolution exhibition by the coal mining company Adani . The directors of the South Kensington Museum were: The directors of the Science Museum have been: The following have been head/director of the Science Museum in London, not including its satellite museums: The following have been directors of the National Museum of Science and Industry , (since April 2012 renamed

2088-417: The museum with a 12 ft (3.7 m) pink dodo. In 2021, Chris Rapley, a climate scientist, resigned from the museum's advisory board because of oil and gas company sponsorship. In 2021, more than 40 senior academics and scientists said they would not work with the Science Museum due to its financial relationships with the fossil fuel industry. In 2022, more than 400 teachers signed an open letter to

2146-472: The objects on display come from the Wellcome Collection started by Henry Wellcome . One of the commissioned artworks is a large bronze sculpture of Rick Genest titled Self-Conscious Gene by Marc Quinn . The galleries occupy the museum's entire first floor and opened on 16 November 2019. The Clockmakers Museum is the world's oldest clock and watch museum which was originally assembled by

2204-544: The oil companies." Scientists for Global Responsibility called the museum's move "staggeringly out-of-step and irresponsible". Some presenters, including George Monbiot , pulled out of climate talks on finding they were sponsored by BP and the Norwegian oil company Equinor . Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment said the "carbon capture exhibition

2262-612: The onset of the Industrial Revolution . The emphasis was on modernisation, with regulations being introduced to clean up the nation's streets, promoting the re-paving of roads and pavements, improving drainage and street lighting, and better fireproofing of buildings with the widespread use of brick and stone. Speculative building was rife, with some developers focussing on high speed and low cost. Sometimes, newly built houses collapsed due to poor workmanship; whilst others continually shifted on their foundations, giving rise to

2320-561: The phrase "things that go bump in the night", as mysterious crashes, creaks and thuds were heard by their inhabitants late at night. London experienced major expansion, with the newly built West End, which included the elegant squares of Mayfair ; areas of the East End of London were also developed, such as the new terraces in Spitalfields . The cities of Edinburgh , Bristol and Dublin were all expanded and modernised. Birmingham

2378-460: The program. As a consequence, Christopher Strachey of NRDC , who was himself a brilliant programmer, recommended the following design objectives: The first objective was only partially met, because both program code and the data on which it was to operate had to be in the 128  words of primary storage contained in 8-word nickel delay lines . The rest of the memory was held on a 7936-word magnetic drum , which rotated at 3750 rpm, so it

Ferranti Pegasus - Misplaced Pages Continue

2436-440: The public, it allows free access to almost 7,000 volumes, which can be consulted on site. The Science Museum has been sponsored by major organisations including Shell , BP , Samsung and GlaxoSmithKline . Some have been controversial. The museum declined to give details of how much it receives from oil and gas sponsors. Equinor is also the title sponsor of "Wonderlab: The Equinor Gallery", an exhibition for children, while BP

2494-550: The style is currently more usually termed Early Neoclassical . It was typical of Adam style to combine decorative neo-Gothic details into the classical framework. So-called "Egyptian" and "Etruscan" design motifs were minor features. The Adam style is identified with: The Adam style was superseded from around 1795 onwards by the simpler Regency style in Britain; and the French Empire style in France and Russia, which

2552-705: The underlying structures remaining medieval. The Neoclassical style was all the vogue throughout the 18th century, and many style guides were published to advise builders how their finished properties should look. Influential guides included Stephen Riou's The Grecian Orders (1768), and Batty Langley 's A Sure Guide to Builders (1729), The Young Builder's Rudiments (1730 and 1734), Ancient Masonry (1736), The City and Country Builder's and Workman's Treasury of Designs (1740 and later editions), The Builder's Jewel (1741). Architects, designers, cabinet makers, stonemasons, and craftsmen published pattern books and style guides to advertise their ideas, thereby hoping to attract

2610-734: The use of United Steel . It was the first computer installed for management cybernetics . The Pegasus at Southampton University was used for analysis of ground resonance data for the Saro P.531 helicopter, which eventually entered production as the Westland Scout and Westland Wasp . In 1957 a Pegasus computer was used to calculate 7480 digits of π , a record at the time. In 1959 Handley Page Ltd were advertising for experienced Pegasus programmers to join their aviation design team at Cricklewood, London The Computing Laboratory at Newcastle University (then "King's College, Durham University")

2668-480: The whole museum, but when that new building finally opened ten years later, the title was confined to the Art Collections and the Science Collections had to be divorced from it. On 26 June 1909 the Science Museum, as an independent entity, came into existence. The Science Museum's present quarters, designed by Sir Richard Allison , were opened to the public in stages over the period 1919–28. This building

2726-428: Was 128 microseconds. Multiply, divide, justify and shift instructions took a variable time to complete. Transfers to and from the drum were synchronous. The layout of blocks on the drum was interleaved to allow some processing between transfers to/from consecutive blocks. The computer was advertised as weighing 2,560 lb (1.2 t). To what extent Strachey's third objective was reached, depends on how one views

2784-563: Was a more imperial and self-consciously archeological style, connected with the First French Empire . The Adam style was strongly influenced by: Interest in the Adam style was revived in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, initiated by a spectacular marquetry cabinet by Wright & Mansfield exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1867 . Reproduction furniture in the general " Regency Revival " style, to which

2842-456: Was built by the Science Museum and its main part completed in 1991, to celebrate 200 years since Babbage's birth, and was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects . The Information Age gallery has exhibits covering the development of communications and computing over the last two centuries. It explores the six networks that have transformed global communications: The Cable, The Telephone Exchange, Broadcast, The Constellation, The Cell and The Web It

2900-558: Was criticised by some scientists, including Richard Dawkins , but supported by other scientists, including Steven Rose . The museum has undergone many changes in its history with older galleries being replaced by new ones. Blythe House, 1979–2019, the museum's former storage facility in West Kensington , while not a gallery, it offered tours of the collections housed there. Objects formerly housed there are being transferred to

2958-414: Was described in 1791 as being the "first manufacturing town in the world". Manchester and Liverpool each saw their population triple between 1760 and 1800. New towns, like Bath , were constructed around natural spas. Old medieval cities and market towns, such as York and Chichester , had their buildings re-fronted with brick or stucco, plus new sash windows, to give the impression of modernity, despite

SECTION 50

#1732776030858

3016-669: Was established in 1957, and a Ferranti Pegasus was installed as the first computer – reputed at the time to be the first computer of any kind in the North East of England. The University of Leeds had a Pegasus computer, run by Sandy Douglas . This was used, among other things, for a project to process the University's matriculation records and by the British Market Research Bureau to analyze National Readership Survey data. Other people who worked on

3074-727: Was hugely expensive in terms of lives, with the Nazis using slave labour to manufacture these rockets". Stephenson's Rocket used to be displayed in this gallery. After a short UK tour, since 2019 Rocket is on permanent display at the National Railway Museum in York, in the Art Gallery. The Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries is a five-gallery medical exhibition which spans ancient history to modern times with over 3000 exhibits and specially commissioned artworks. Many of

3132-615: Was introduced by Scottish architect Charles Cameron ), and post- Revolutionary War United States (where it became known as Federal style and took on a variation of its own). The style was superseded from around 1795 onwards by the Regency style and the French Empire style . During the 18th century there was much work for eager architects and designers, as Britain experienced a boom in the building of new houses, theatres, shops, offices and factories, with towns growing rapidly due to

3190-474: Was known as the East Block, construction of which began in 1913 and was temporarily halted by World War I . As the name suggests it was intended to be the first building of a much larger project, which was never realized. However, the museum buildings were expanded over the following years; a pioneering Children's Gallery with interactive exhibits opened in 1931, the Centre Block was completed in 1961–3,

3248-514: Was often necessary to use ingenuity to reduce the number of transfers between the fast store and the drum. Pegasus had eight accumulators , seven of which could also be used as index registers , the first computer to allow this dual use. Accumulators  6 and 7 were known as p and q and were involved in multiplication and division and some double-length shift instructions. Each word contained 39 bits plus 1 bit for parity checking . Two 19-bit instructions were packed into one word, with

3306-466: Was opened on 24 October 2014 by the Queen, Elizabeth II , who sent her first tweet from here. One of the most popular galleries in the museum is the interactive Wonderlab:The Equinor Gallery , formerly called Launchpad . The gallery is staffed by Explainers who demonstrate how exhibits work, conduct live experiments and perform shows to schools and the visiting public. The Flight gallery charts

3364-549: Was used to calculate the stresses and strains in the tail plane of the Saunders-Roe SR.53 ; the results were used to check the manufacturer's figures; the programmer was Anne Robson. Because of the importance of a computer, it was housed in the drawing room, complete with an Adam's ceiling , of Ferranti's London office in Portland Place. A Pegasus 1 was installed at Cybor House, Sheffield by Stafford Beer for

#857142