THE KING GEORGE III COLLECTION OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS

 

 ‘Physics in the 18th Century’ by Dr Jim Kelly, inspired by exhibits at The Science Museum, London

    jfK 2004

 

 

 

Questions

Answers

1.

The English Civil War was fought between 1642 and when ?

(William Shakespeare 1564-1616, Galileo Galilei 1564-1642, Isaac Newton 1642-1727)

 

2.

In which year & under whose patronage was the Royal Society established ?

(The Royal Institution founded in 1799 by Count Rumford  – Michael Faraday 1791-1867)

 

3.

In which year did Newton publish his famous work ‘The Principia Mathematica’ ?

When was he elected President of the Royal Society ? (Fig 2. Hauksbee pump c.1705)

(Robert Hooke curator of expts 1662, Micrographia & Gresham Geometry Prof 1665)

 

4.

Name the itinerant British lecturer who gave public demonstrations of scientific instruments?

(Became Superintendent of Kew Observatory in 1769 which housed the King George III Collection )

 

5.

By whom & when was ‘A Philosopher giving a lecture on the Orrery’ painted ?  (Fig 3.)

(Industrial realism & Scientific romanticism  in artifical light are the themes of this follower of Caravaggio)

 

6.

Who made the astronomical instrument for the Earl of Orrery in 1712 ?

(Charles Boyle IV Earl of Orrery was a relative of Robert Boyle author of ‘On the spring of the air’)

 

7.

List the year in which the following instruments were devised:

(i)              Bell in vacuo (Fig 1.) 

(ii)                 Archimedean screw

(iii)                Electric chimes   

(iv)                Friction machine 

(Thermometer 1592 Galileo,  Barometer 1643 Evangilista Torricelli developed the theorem v = Ö2gh )         

Fig 1.

8.

Name the instrument maker to King George III (reigned 1760-1820) ? 

(Fig 2. A  portrait of King George III c1761 by Allan Ramsay also known as Farmer George)

 

9.

Who called this soil ‘England’s Green and Pleasant Land ?

‘To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour …..’

 

10.

For which invention is James Watt famous ?

(Scottish Physicist Joseph Black 1728-1799 developed the concept of specific Latent heat – influenced Watt)

 

11.

What were these Industrial towns famous for ?

Manchester .......................................Leeds..........................................

Birmingham.......................................Stoke .........................................

 

12.

Where and when did King George III have an Observatory built ?

(Royal Observatory Greenwich founded in 1675 by Charles II, First Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed)

 

13.

What event took place on 3rd June 1769 (& again on 8th June 2004) ?

(Nicolaus Copernicus published “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” in 1543)

 

14.

Which planet did William Herschel discover (1781), what mistake did he make in naming it?

(Neville Maskelyne Astronomer Royal 1765-1811, Harrison’s chronometer H4 1760)

 

15.

What topics did the pneumatics demonstrations aim to illustrate ?

(Fig 5. From Von Guericke’s Experimenta Nova 1672, A standard demonstration in Natural Philosophy )

 

16.

Explain which phenomenon the guinea & feather apparatus demonstrated ?

(Neil Armstrong performed a similar  experiment on the moon in July 1969)

 

 

 

 

Air  pump c.1705            The Revolution of the heavenly orbs                King George III                                   Magdeburg Hemispheres

 

      Fig 2.                         Figure 3.                                       Fig 4.                                        Fig 5.

 

 

 

Newtonian Timeline

b. Woolsthorpe   Calculus         Universal Gravitation   Lucasian Prof   Principia Mathematica    Breakdown       Master Mint     
1642                     1665 (Plague) 1666 (Great Fire)          1669 (Trinity)    1687 (Edmund Halley)   1693               1700 (London)              
 
Pres Royal Society           Optiks     Westminster Abbey
1703 (d. Robert Hooke)   1704        1727
 
 
References

1.  ‘Science in the 18th Century’ Alan Q Morton, 1993 Science Museum

2.  ‘A short history of Scientific ideas to 1900’ Charles Singer, 1959 Oxford University Press

3.  ‘Britain since 1700’ RJ Cootes, Longmans

4.   ‘The Old Royal Observatory –The story of astronomy & time’ 1991 Centurion Press

5.  ‘The Ascent of Man’ Jacob Bronowski, 1973 BBC publications

6.  ‘Public & Private Science – The King George III Collection’ Morton AQ & Wess JA , 1993 OUP

7.  ‘Longitude’ Dava Sobel 1995 Fourth Estate Ltd

8.   Encyclopedia Britannica 15th Edition University of Chicago