The History of Science

By Linda Tancs

The Whipple Museum of the History of Science was founded in 1944 when Robert Stewart Whipple presented his collection of 1,000 scientific instruments and a similar number of books to the University of Cambridge in England. Today, the museum’s collection encompasses objects dating from medieval times to the present day. In addition to models, pictures, prints, photographs, rare books and other material related to the history of science, their vast collection includes instruments of astronomy, navigation, surveying, drawing and calculating as well as sundials, mathematical instruments and early electrical apparatus. You’ll also find famous works such as Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica, explaining his theory of gravity, and Christiaan Huygens’s Horologium Oscillatorium, detailing the invention of the pendulum clock. Admission is free.