Last year marked 150 years since the founding of the Cavendish Laboratory of Experimental Physics – and a new exhibition is celebrating the milestone.
No-one could have predicted in 1874 that University of Cambridge physics would give birth to the atomic age – that the electron and neutron would be discovered, and the atom itself split, on Free School Lane.
The Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith Heppell
The Whipple Museum of the History of Science is commemorating the anniversary with a new exhibition, The Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age, which opened in late November and features some of the most important instruments from the Cavendish Laboratory’s collection.
From delicate glass vessels and workbench instruments to one of the first industrial-scale particle accelerators, this is a rare chance to get up close to apparatus used by JJ Thomson, Ernest Rutherford, and James Clerk Maxwell – and find out more about the remarkable community that revolutionised our understanding of the universe.
The Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith HeppellThe Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith HeppellThe Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith HeppellThe Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith HeppellThe Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith Heppell
“We’re just a few doors down from the Cavendish Laboratory’s original site, so it’s incredible to have so many important instruments from it on display at the Whipple to mark the anniversary,” said the Whipple Museum’s curator, Dr Hannah Price.
“Many of the instruments are returning to Free School Lane for the first time in 50 years and some have never been on public display before.”
Dr Harry Cliff, curator of the Cavendish Laboratory collection, added: “This is an important year for the Cavendish.
“Not only are we celebrating our 150th anniversary, but we’re in the process of moving to a new home, the Ray Dolby Centre on JJ Thomson Avenue.
“We’re delighted to be able to mark the anniversary at the Whipple Museum before the collection moves to its new home in the Ray Dolby Centre.”
The Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith HeppellThe Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith HeppellThe Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith HeppellThe Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith HeppellThe Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith Heppell
The exhibition will be open until May 2025. Objects on display include James Clerk Maxwell’s model of Saturn’s rings and Ernest Rutherford and James Chadwick’s nuclear disintegration chamber, from 1923, used by the pair to study how the nuclei of different elements break down.
These findings were crucial in enabling Cavendish physicists Cockroft and Walton to “split the atom” in 1932.
The Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith HeppellThe Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith HeppellThe Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith HeppellThe Cavendish Laboratory and the Birth of the Atomic Age exhibition at The Whipple Museum. Picture: Keith Heppell
For more information, visit museums.cam.ac.uk/events/ cavendish-laboratory-and-birth-atomic-age.