Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatability of findings are used to try to ensure the validity of scientific advances.
The Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUMNH) is a museum displaying many of the University of Oxford's natural history specimens, located on Parks Road in Oxford, England. It also contains a lecture theatre which is used by the university's chemistry, zoology and mathematics departments. The museum provides the only public access into the adjoining Pitt Rivers Museum.
The Austrian National Library is the largest library in Austria, with more than 12 million items in its various collections. The library is located in the Neue Burg Wing of the Hofburg in center of Vienna. Since 2005, some of the collections have been relocated within the Baroque structure of the Palais Mollard-Clary. Founded by the Habsburgs, the library was originally called the Imperial Court Library ; the change to the current name occurred in 1920, following the end of the Habsburg Monarchy and the proclamation of the Austrian Republic. The library complex includes four museums, as well as multiple special collections and archives.
The History of Science Museum in Broad Street, Oxford, England, holds a leading collection of scientific instruments from Middle Ages to the 19th century. The museum building is also known as the Old Ashmolean Building to distinguish it from the newer Ashmolean Museum building completed in 1894. The museum was built in 1683, and it is the world's oldest surviving purpose-built museum.
The Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) is a centre for research into the polar regions and glaciology worldwide. It is a sub-department of the Department of Geography in the University of Cambridge, located on Lensfield Road in the south of Cambridge.
Robert Geoffrey William Anderson, is a British museum curator and historian of chemistry. He has wide-ranging interests in the history of chemistry, including the history of scientific instrumentation, the work of Joseph Black and Joseph Priestley, the history of museums, and the involvement of the working class in material culture. He has been Director of the Science Museum, London, the National Museums of Scotland, the British Museum, London, and president and CEO of the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia.
James Arthur "Jim" Bennett, was a museum curator and historian of science. Bennett's interests lay in the history of practical mathematics from the 16th century to the 18th century, scientific instruments and astronomy.
Museo Galileo is located in Florence, Italy, in Piazza dei Giudici, along the River Arno and close to the Uffizi Gallery. The museum, dedicated to astronomer and scientist Galileo Galilei, is housed in Palazzo Castellani, an 11th-century building which was then known as the Castello d'Altafronte.
Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company was a company founded in the late 1870s by Robert Fulcher. The original use of the company was to service instruments for the Cambridge physiology department. In the beginning, the company was financially driven by a friend of Horace Darwin (1851–1928), Albert Dew-Smith (1848–1903). Eventually, Fulcher was fully replaced in the company by Darwin and Dew-Smith, in 1881, who would then become the sole co-owners. In light of the company being taken over, by Darwin and Dew-Smith, it grew in regard and size. By the time the company was about 15 years old, in 1891, Horace Darwin became the sole owner of the company.
Robert Stewart Whipple was a businessman in the British scientific instrument trade, a collector of science books and scientific instruments, and an author on their history. He amassed a unique collection of antique scientific instruments that he later donated to found the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge in 1944.
The Science History Institute is an institution that preserves and promotes understanding of the history of science. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it includes a library, museum, archive, research center and conference center.
The University Museum of Zoology is a museum of the University of Cambridge and part of the research community of the Department of Zoology. The public is welcome and admission is free (2018). The Museum of Zoology is in the David Attenborough Building, formerly known as the Arup Building, on the New Museums Site, just north of Downing Street in central Cambridge, England. The building also provides a home for the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, a biodiversity project.
The Department of History and Philosophy of Science (HPS), of the University of Cambridge is the largest department of history and philosophy of science in the United Kingdom. A majority of its submissions received maximum ratings of 4* and 3* in the 2014 REF. Located in the historic buildings of the Old Physical Chemistry Laboratories on Free School Lane, Cambridge, the department teaches undergraduate courses towards the Cambridge Tripos and graduate courses including a taught Masters and PhD supervision in the field of HPS. The department shares its premises with the Whipple Museum and Whipple Library which provide important resources for its teaching and research.
The Virtual Teaching Collection (VTC) project at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge within the University of Cambridge, led by Dr Robin Boast, ran from 1994 to 1997 and was part of the Teaching and Learning Technology Project funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
Alfred Rupert Hall was a prominent British historian of science, known as editor of a collection of Isaac Newton's unpublished scientific papers (1962), and Newton's correspondence, in 1977.
The King George III Museum was a museum within King's College London, England between 1843 and 1927 which held the collections of scientific instruments of George III as well as eminent nineteenth-century scientists including Sir Charles Wheatstone and Charles Babbage. The collection of scientific and mathematical instruments assembled by George III, after whom the museum is named, was donated to the university by Queen Victoria in 1841, and the museum was opened by Albert, Prince Consort on 1 July 1843. The museum was located within the King's Building designed by Sir Robert Smirke. It counted among its collections the unfinished prototype of the Difference Engine No. 1, designed by Charles Babbage, who is considered a "father of the computer". The museum closed in 1926, and much of its collections were transferred on loan to the Science Museum, London.
Harvard University's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments (CHSI), established 1948, is "one of the three largest university collections of its kind in the world". Waywiser, the online catalog of the collection, lists over 60% of the collection's 20,000 objects as of 2014. The collection was originally curated by Mr. David P Wheatland in his office to prevent obsolete equipment from being cannibalized for its component parts and materials.
Henry Sutton was an English instrument maker who operated out of London from 1650 to 1661. He is known for his high-quality engravings of scales and quadrants.
John Cuff was an important English scientific instrument maker, particularly of microscopes.
