Day 3 in London! We sort of slept in....until 5.45 am.....!!
First up was the SEALIFE Aquarium which was part of our ticket bundle with the London Dungeon and the London Eye (and in the same area) so we headed back over to Westminster area. This is not our favourite area due to the ridiculous crowds of people, many of them ill-mannered tourists. James almost wanted to leave the aquarium before we started due to the screaming children and loud noise that echoed around the area. However despite all the parents putting their children in front of the organisms so no one else could see them, and a lot of pushing and shoving to get a view, the aquarium was very good, and overall an enjoyable experience. We even got to see a full sized green sea turtle in the main tank, which was amazing. I have seen one briefly while snorkelling in Vanuatu, but seeing it in a clear tank as opposed to deep murky bottom waters is a very different experience! We also got to see plenty of magnificent and satisfyingly large sharks and rays....
jellyfish....
crocodiles....
Gentoo Penguins....
and many other exciting creatures....
After the aquarium we were keen to leave the crowds behind so we hurried to the nearest tube station and headed out to the Science Museum, where we started with lunch and then began to make our way around. We started on the top floor (level 5) with the History of Medicine. This exhibit spanned 2 and a half floors, and we barely got through half of floor 5 before we really needed to sit down from sore feet. Although it was fascinating, we decided to leave the rest of the medicine exhibit to see other parts of the museum. The pictures below are of carvings depicting early medicine, and extracts out of a herbal medicine book.
We then went down to the second floor where we explored the works of James Lovelock and the histories of computers and mathematics. As someone who has studied biology, I do not hold Lovelock's work with great esteem, but my respect for him grew as we looked around the exhibit. His work as a chemist and as an engineer is astounding, I did not know that it was he who invented the methods for measuring many of the atmospheric gases such as chlorofluorocarbons, and that it was his inventions that led to the restrictions of the use of this ozone depleting group of chemicals in refrigerants etc. However the exhibit could not change my mind about his dabbling's in biology. His Gaia hypothesis was fine in the 1970's, but there is now so much science out there disproving it that he should no longer be continuing to write on it - he is spreading false hope and misinformation in regards to climate change. A more cynical me would say that perhaps his more recent publications are a money making scheme as of course so many people want to hear that the world can heal itself in light of the depressing messages of global warming we get from elsewhere. At least the museum made it very clear that none of his Gaia hypothesis was scientifically proven.
In the computer and maths history sections James most definitely had a better understanding of what was going on than I did, but these are the things that I thought were really cool:
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| Difference Engine designed in 1849. It does maths calculations when you turn the handle. |
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| This is Ernie, an electronic random number generator |
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| A really old Pegasus Computer from 1959 |
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| This shows how the different lattices of atoms can be formed |
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| DNA! The black lines represent the two strands |
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| Another model of DNA. |
The last exhibit we chose to look at was agriculture which was my choice. The display cabinets with miniatures are so cute. They basically show the progression of technology in farming the land.
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| Using oxen to till the field |
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| Using horses |
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| Using early machines |
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| Using machines with an engine |
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| Potato Harvesting |
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| Making Hay Bales |
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| Making Silage |
Overall, we probably managed to see just under half of the museum. I must admit, I am not generally a fan of museums, and this was James' choice of activity, however I'm pretty sure it was me at the end regretting I had not allocated enough time to this.
We got back to our apartment at around 5 pm where I pretty much immediately fell asleep, until James woke me at nearly 9 pm to eat some dinner which was luckily leftovers. Guess these early 5.30 am starts are starting to catch up with me, but not sure what we can do with all the noise!
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