Home of the Christmas lectures
The Royal Institution
Behind the glowing columns at the north end of Albemarle Street are scientific laboratories, a famous lecture theatre and a museum
Public engagement with science
The Royal Institution was founded in 1799 to promote the application of science 'to the common purposes of life'. The Institution has been fulfilling this goal ever since through lecture series, such as the televised Christmas lectures, popular science debates and the scientific research of its world renowned laboratory.
It was here that Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday and William and Lawrence Bragg, to name but four, made such seminal scientific discoveries as sodium, the electric generator and the atomic structure of crystals, many of which have exerted a profound influence on society.
The Faraday Museum
The Michael Faraday Museum houses all the apparatus, manuscripts, pictures and personal items of a man who began his working life as an errand boy but who made discoveries which still shape our lives today. His discoveries in electromagnetism led directly to electric motors and electrical power supplies. His studies of electrochemistry laid the theoretical foundations of the processes which are now used to make chemicals such as aluminium and chlorine.
Submitted by: Gail Cardew of the Ri, 15 January 2007
