Today was our last full day around London. We’d talked about checking out some science venues either in Cambridge or Oxford.. but the logistics of getting out of town sounded like too much to take on.. and we still had much we wanted to see in London. We specifically wanted to see the natural history museum.. which turned out to be a very good choice !
We got there around 10 AM and began exploring. The museum building itself is amazing… every nook and corner had things to see.
We started by looking at all the animal stuff.. including the evidence that Darwin used to arrive at his theories on evolution.
Then we headed to the minerals.. they had rooms and rooms (and rooms) of mineral displays, including a ‘herkimer diamond’.. a kind of quarts that diane has on her necklace.
then some dinosaurs !.. an amazing collection !
We spent about a half a day at the Museum of Natural History.. we took off from there to check out the Welcomme (yes … two ‘M’s” ) across town..we ran into a guy playing a flaming tuba !
The Welcomme collection was quite different than we expected. It was an eclectic collection of human health exhibits.. it was very political.. most of the displays had to do with inequity.. .. it was cool.. but more politicalized than I liked. It was very well thought out.. there was a big display about the inequities of Milk.. including the false health claims over the years… and even how milk was used in some antisemitic and racists protests.. because many folks like Ashkenazi jews (like me) and Blacks cant drink milk comfortably.. Pretty unsettling stuff.. but well curated !
Upstairs there was a reading room with more interesting and disturbing stuff. Like the story of thalidomide babies and the way England tried to ‘normalize’ their deformities.. and the story of Henrietta Lacks
It was getting late.. and we were hungry at that point.. Luckily a good friend of ours from the US , Sam Brehm, had seen Gabe’s Instagram and new we were in town. Sam was in our Sam’s grade and had bene a frequent visitor to our house.. She’s in London teaching at am international school after getting a masters in language education from Oxford. She’s about to go back for her PhD in the same topic. Sam lives in South London. .> We met her at a really nice pub and ate soem great Pub food.. which was on our list to eat !
From the pub.. we took a really great walk down the southbank of the THames.. and over towards where we were staying. Sam was a great tour guide. It was SO great to see her !
Gabe and Sam headed out for a drink.. whiel Diane and I headed back to our Airbnb to pack..
It had been a great last day of our London adventure !
Now on to day 3 in London… And it was also my parents Anniversary. Love you both.. Miss you Dad !
Today was our one trip out of London. Our goal was to head to Blechley Park, the home of the English secret service whose mission it was to decrypt secret German communications during the Second World War.
We took the tube to Euston Station then took a train to Blechley Park near Milton Keynes.. The trip was only about 35 min.
Wed misstimed our visit a bit as the museum of computing was not open on Friday.. btut the larger Bletchly park museum was open.. and that turned out to be about as miuch as we could fit into our brains.. The museum is really impressive. Wesley Park started in the 1930s as a secret outpost where English intelligence would gather wireless Morse code communications from the Germans, Japanese and Italians and decrypt them using a variety of methods… Most of them intensely manual. The place was chosen because it was a nondescript rundown manor house. It was retrofit with all sorts of offices and Barricks and canteens… And at one point employed more than 5000 people!… Day in and day out messengers came in on motorcycles carrying written transcriptions of intercepted Morse code messages.… There was a large array of scientists as well as military people there working on cracking the ever more sophisticated codes. The museum is laid out as it was left… Sprawling with a bunch of mix of architecture some of it very old some of it dating from the second world war. You really got a sense of what it was like to be there. We took a guided tour through some of the grounds… We saw the original manor house which had the first 150 people working in it.… We toured the radio center and large parts of the museum where you could see where people translated codes filed them punched cards etc. It really gave you a sense of what it was lik. There were some amazing displays of equipment and personal affects of some of the people who worked here. The most famous of which was Alan Turing .
I particulalry liked seeign the equipment including the German Enigma encoding engines and the first digital computers built buy the british to help decode the ciphers. I loved the stories of how the crypologists worked through the complicated moving codes.. It was often an error.. like a retransmitted message that provided the crucial clue needed to decode a secret message.
I particularly liked learning more about Alan Turing. He was ana mazing mathematician and cryptographer a…. hich most folks know.. but he was also one of the worlds first computational biologists. He had soem very interestign theores abotu evolutionary biology. He was a key contributer to the computation engines used on code breaking… His contribiutions to the world were amazing .. but would have been so much more if he’d been allowed ot coninue his work. He was prosecuted asa homosexual and subject to horrible medical treatments to try to ‘fix’ him.. THe treatments made it impossible for him to work.. he chose to end his own life at age 42.. such a sad story..!
Visiting Bletchly was both fun and exhausting.. It was very cool dropping back into the time where the fate of so many people depended on math !
We grabbed a bite and grabbed the next train back to London
We went eight from our train to the Museum of Novelty Automation . It is a small place that shows the amazing contraptions from Artist and Inventor Tim Hunkin.. We first came to know his work from the wonderful water clock that once was in Neils Yard.. We used to visit when Diane and I lived in the UK from 1984-86 . The clock is no longer there.. but this museum had more than a dozen of Hunkins peices.. >. You baught tokens..and used them to interact with the exhibits.. they were so amazing and fun ! FOr example.. you put you hand in a cage where an animated dog luncges and growlss a, slobers and snaps at your hand.. the longer you keep your hand in there .. the more you win. Or a game you play by steering a runnign man through a forest of cell phone zombies.. people walkign while looking at the phones… Or another where you put an object into a try and an automata descides whenter its art or not.. or an eclipse booth, or nuclkear control rod insertion gamwe with a defective clw.. or … or .. or…. .. it was nuts !
We grabbed dinner at a fish and chips place that gabe had found on TikTok.. it was soooo good.. Mushy peas and all !
Then Gabe left to explore the city a bit on his own.. while diane and I went to have a drink with a freind of a friend Cath G> Cathy is a good friend of my Friend David. They are both many things.. including undersea explorers. tHey met while workign with Ballard on the re-discovery of the Titanic !
It was wonderful getting to know Cathy.. Her husband Tom died a year again.. and she was still working though grief. She is back out in the world. SHe told us about some of the cool projects shes working on.. an iron age cite that is half submerged of the coast of greecwe.. and an undersea city off the coast of napoli.. WHat an amazing person.. and what an amazing life !
Today was our first full day in London. We had arranged with Laurence Stales for a guided science tour of London. Laurence has a web site we found (https://www.laurenceswalks.co.uk/) that we found online. We corresponded with him before the trip and he arranged the most wonderful 6 hour ‘back streets of science’ tour. It was fantastic. Laurence is a learned, funny, friendly and articulate interpreter of science He’s a mechanical engineer, a published author and an archivist in the Royal Institution. . The perfect English science guy !
We woke early-ish and took the tube to a shopping center opposite St. Pauls church and met up with Laurence
We learned about how Robert Hooke figured out the catenary equations that allowed Hooke in 1670 to design the proper curvature to allow St. Pauls dome to be built. (the catnery’s are related to those weird hyperbolic functions you never used on your calculator 🙂 Hooke was a weird dude.. He was so secretive that he encoded the solution to the catenary solution he found as and anagram
Ut pendet continuum flexile, sic stabit contiguum rigidum inversum
which translated to english is
As hangs a flexible cable so, inverted, stand the touching pieces of an arch.
Of course 🙂
Hooke did so many things.. he helped remap London after the great fire of 1666.. he invented the law of a springs force (still called Hookes law) .. /; the was the head of the Royal Society…… .. When his arch Rival Sir Issac Newton took over the Royal Society, ehe had all pictures of Hooke removed…. We visited the Royal Society.. which was not much to see.. then saw it’s older more picturesque location. I enjoyed that because the ROyal Society is the model for the US National Academy that I’m a. member of.
We learned all this by 11 AM !
We spent the rest of the day exploring London science with Laurences expert help. We stopped by THe brides church, Samuel Johnson (first official Eeglish lexicographer) . Kings College London (where3 I saw my freind and former bosses Harriett’s picture as one of the celebrated alums !!!
Then lunch at the Royal Society…. including a lunch at their very nice cafeteria (actually .. I think anyone can eat there.. but it felt special with lLaurence 🙂
From there we walked a bit through the pop and circumstance of the recent coronation… London was still in top form !
We walked to the Royal Instittion … which was my favorite thing of the day. Laurence is a. member and an archivist there. His knowledge of the place helped us reallly take in the place…
The building is beutiful.. there4’s a model of the physicists Michael Farady,. one of the most famous lumns.. note his hand nt the form of the right hand rule !
Touring the place with Laurence was amazing.
We loved the art in the gallery.. many famous scientists represented here.. including painings of the famous ‘christmas lectures’.. which still happen to this day !
Note here that Lord Kelvin seems to be ‘resting his eyes’
We got to visit the presentation room where so many famous sceintists have spoken.. and so many sciene talks for the public have been held. Laurnece told us that there are several talks. every month for the public on topics related to sceince… and that the christmas shows are still produced there and shown recorded on BB. It was an honor to visit that room !
From there we went into the basement where We saw equipment from some. of the most famous scientists in history :
Dewer’s Dewer for holding super cold liquified gases
Gas samples purified by Humphyy Davies (a notorious Nitrous Oxide lover) ..
Bragg’s optical instruments
Rayleighs spectrometer
Thompsons particle devices.
Tyndall’s work on why the sky is blue
And.. best of all… Michael Faradays laboratory.. which has been preserved to this day thanks to a happy accident of architecture !
then it was time to say goodbye to Laurence. It had been such an excellent day. We highly (!!!) recommend you meet up with Laurence when you are next in london by way of https://www.laurenceswalks.co.uk/about-me
That was already a very full day.. but it wasn’t over by a long shot ! We tube the tube back to the house. Took a short rest.. then began a mile walk to Santa Maria… a pizza place chosen by Diane’s distant cousin Massimo.. We’d made connection with Massimo by way of Diane’s brother Steve who’s done extensive genealogical research on both sides of his and Diane’s family (and his wife’s family as well) . Steve had reached out to Massimo several years ago by mail after he and his wife Gulia had moved from Italy to England. .. Steve lost track of Mssimo a couple of years ago… . I was able to reconnect with Massimo on Linkedin and we’d made a plan to meet up when we were in London. Massimo had chosen the Santa Maria Pizzaria because.. he and Gulia felt it was thepest aNapolese style pizza outsode of Naploi… Massimo said it was even better than the pizza in Napoli !
We got to Santa Maria first.. then Massimo and Gulia showed up. It was so fun meeting them !.. they are both so nice and freindly..We ordered and started into our story… Diane and I are traveling to Italy in September with our close friends Linda and David. Our plan is to visit the towns of the places where Dianes grandparents are from in Abruzzo and and Lindas grandmother is from in Calabria..
Our goal tonight.. aside from meeting a wonderful new relative.. was to find out things and people to see In Abruzzo. We are specifically interested in proving or disproving a long told family story of how Dianes grandmother came to the US
Massimo’s last name is Ruano.. his grandfather was was the brother of DIane’s grandmothers mother. Massimo and his family are from the small town of Bucchianico. in the Abruzzo region of Italy.. It’s the same town that Diane’s Grandmother Pierina and Grandfather Constantine were from. The history we know is that Dianes Grandfather came over to Binghamton NY by ship in the `1920’s . He married Teresa Mancini who was also from Bucchianico. .. Constantino and Teresa had 3 children before Teresa sadly died of pneumonia. After a while in 1930 , Constantino sailed back to Italy to find a new wife to help him raise the small kids, (Dieane’s aunts Toni, Marie and Armond) . Teresa’s parents actually helped Constantino find his new wife, Pierina. The family lore is that Pierina’s parents Stefano and Anna were eager to Get Pierina married off because she had two suitors and oen had killed the other .. perhaps in a duel.
No one who could verify this story is still alive in this country, so we’re hopign to get tot he bottom of it when we visit… Massimo was pretty sure that the story could not be true… but he picked up his phone and called his father back in Bucchianico.. THey strarted speakign Italian… and when Massimo hung up.. he told us his dad had confirmed that when he’d been a kid, he’d heard the story.. thoguyh it happened before he was born.. It was an amazing moment..
Now we’re planning on visiting Massimo’s dad and his mom on our trop. Neither speaks english.. but by luck, Massimo’s mom also speaks German.. so I should be able to communicate ok.. It will eb so fun to learn more.. !!!I
It was a great evening with Massimo and Gulia.. they are such wonderful people..w e’re very glad to be connected to them !
We said goodbye and walked home…. processing all we’d heard… .. what a great day !
Preface: Those of you reading this (if anyone does 🙂 will realize by now that I can get quite a few days behind before writing. I really enjoy looking back over the previous days (or weeks) and reflecting on what happened. I’m sitting down now trying to capture our first day in London and realize that even with a half day I’m sorting through 259 pictures.. It’s gonna take soem time catching up.. but I love doing it !
We got to London about 6:30 AM after a great sleep on the plane (how often does that really happen ? ) … Gabe’s plane landed just a few minutes later and we met up in Baggage.. so far so good !
We took the Tube to town , grabbed a bite in Regents park.. then wandered over to the Natural History Museum and checked our bags. This was stop 1 on our ‘Science Obscura’ trip. It was an idea Gabe had come up with to visit places of scientific interest between his field (biochemistry) and DIane and my fields (Physics and Engineering). With eh help of a zillion google searches, webstes, youtube and eventually ChaptGPT we came up with he following Itinerary.. (which in hindsight worked very. very well !)
Anyway.. Where was I ? … Oh.. Regents park and the Natural History museum by way of Albert Hall and the Albert Statue
We dropped our bags at the Natural History Museum because they had a bag drop.. but headed straight to the London Science Museum.. We could have spent 2 days just there.. Daleks, Huge steam engines, Medical oddities.. SOem great Watson and Crick Memorobilia !
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Here’s the setup liek the one she used
The medical stuff in the Welcomme Collection was really interesting… Old emdicual devices, medical fakes, patent medicines
This one is a primitive blood pressure measurement device that looks s strangely like something billy and I worked on during the pandemic.. (You’ll hear about that soon here )
They even had one of Van Loevenhoek’s original microscopes !
From there it was time to uber to our sweet Airbnb down in Chelsea.. We got there , dropped our stuff.. then walked back to the museums.. We went by ROsiland Franklins old home
Then stopped into a sweet tea shop for a ‘sceince cream tea’.. They gave us little vials and eyedroppers to do a yummy’ experiment along with the cream tea fixings.. very vute !
Then back to the Science Museum to see clocks, computing machines and more medical gizmos
We saw one of the German Enigma encoding machines.. a prelude ot our visit to Blechlyw On Friday
The museum closed at 5:30.. so we headed out to meet our good friend Ian who’s doing his MBA here. We went to a toney Indian place.. yummy and good fun !
then a nice long walk around Regents park around sunset
Then a long walk back home for much needed sleep..
