The Royal Institution

After our unsuccessful sojourn with the pancake races, we headed to the Royal Institution. This illustrious center of London scientific life was founded in 1799 and is the oldest scientific research institution in the world. It's most notable prodigy is Michael Faraday who pioneered the theory of electromagnetism that drives the world of electricty and communications today. Faraday and his mentor, Humphrey Davy, were so famous in their day that London invented the one-way street to control the crowds arriving to hear their lectures at the Institution. While all that features prominently, the Institution is about many other kinds of science as well as is still a laboratory of worldwide prominence. We had fun learning a song about the periodic table of the elements (see clip.) We played a game where we pretended to be molecules of various elements using our hands and legs to join other elements and make new compounds. (Laura makes a terrible Berrylium because she refused to put both hand and both legs into the air at the same time.) e learned about the properties of magnetism and electricy, and we browsed the amazing library of the Institution, which amazingly is not monitored and not behind glass. Laura was shocked to pick up one volume and find it to be autographed copy of a book donated to the Institution by Alexander Graham Bell in 1909. We left feeling that it had been a good day for learning.