please empty your brain below
I can’t believe you missed the opportunity to go there at ten to four until closing time, to deliberately misinterpret the title.

Jimmy | 13.09.19 - 7:42 a.m. | #

The Science Museum ain’t what it used to be. I went there with my ten and twelve year olds and ticked off every gallery in half a day - I’m sure it was better ‘value for time’ when I was their age.

Saddest moment of the visit was when I asked where the Ship gallery was, only to be told that the top two floors had been cleared a few years back to create corporate space.

dg writes: It closed in 2012. But the curator was allowed to make a 7 minute flythrough YouTube video, here.

Marc | 13.09.19 - 8:49 a.m. | #

18 My son used to insist on reading all of the printed text on every display. Made for very long museum visits, even in small museums.

Ericj | 13.09.19 - 9:00 a.m. | #

I went there last year and it all seemed rather bare compared to days of old. The curse of minimalism. All geared to what kids like I suppose, rather than being an actual museum..

Alex McKenna | 13.09.19 - 9:12 a.m. | #

1 My son (year 3 state school) went on a school trip yesterday, though not to the Science Museum. State school are just as capable of being organised!

Eric | 13.09.19 - 9:18 a.m. | #

It must be hard being a museum curator. People who like a museum like the past. And they usually prefer how the museum used to be, rather than how it is now.

In the case of the London museum of technology - which has always been mistitled - I think they are right though.

Malcolm | 13.09.19 - 9:36 a.m. | #

Ah the ships gallery! There's been something nagging at me every time I've been with my kids that I missed something. Watching the video on youtube convinces me it was this gallery.

It must have made such an impression on me because I know I've been but don't remember when. What a shame I can't show my kids this.

Terry | 13.09.19 - 9:49 a.m. | #

Science Museum galleries closed this decade:

Shipping (1963-2012) [not replaced]
Maths & Computing (1975-2015) [replaced]
Medicine (1980-2015) [imminently replaced]
Agriculture (1951-2017) [not replaced]
Measuring Time (-2017) [replaced]
Energy (2004-2018) [not yet replaced]

diamond geezer | Homepage | 13.09.19 - 10:03 a.m. | #

16 HEAR HEAR!

I've been to the Science Museum once in the past 20 years, and it was very disappointing. They have such a marvellous collection, but seem to have lost the story. Bit Millennium Domey. I do V&A, BM, NG etc multiple times every year, and I'm as interested in science (by broad definition) as in art.

Philip | 13.09.19 - 10:43 a.m. | #

The Sci Mus has an annexe at Wroughton, near Swindon. Watch for open days there - well worth the traipse! Includes a Lockheed Constellation!

Joel | 13.09.19 - 11:20 a.m. | #

When I used to make educational TV programmes about maths and science, I worked with museums a lot. We would tell the stories and the museums displayed the actual things for people to see - or at least they used to.

Increasingly, museums are trying to tell the 'stories', with their own videos and interactive screens, at the expense of showing the remarkable and unique objects they have in their collection.

I'm afraid no museum can compete with 10 episodes of Brian Cox or David Attenborough, but they can let us see and admire real objects from history and from around the world rather than hiding them in the store room, collecting dust with the model ships.

ActonMan | 13.09.19 - 11:51 a.m. | #

The Museum had a radio section, including amateur and commercial radio and a demonstration ham station GB2SM it closed in 1995 after 30 years.

John | 13.09.19 - 11:56 a.m. | #

Ahhh that explains why I couldn't find the clocks gallery at the Mansion House! There's nothing there to tell you to go to the Science Museum (and I'd already seen the collection there without realising where it came from).

Ian Brooker | 13.09.19 - 12:05 p.m. | #

Yes, I found it very disappointing on a visit a couple of years ago. It was one of the best places to visit when I were a lad in the 1950s.

Wroughton is much better if you get an opportunity to visit, but some of the hangars are never opened because they are in a precarious state. We had to wear hard hats when on a privately arranged visit ten years ago, with Dr Alex Moulton to see his 1970s eight-wheeled coach.

Keith | 13.09.19 - 12:37 p.m. | #

The video of the Shipping gallery is incredible - you'd hope that technology will soon be routinely deployed to preserve displays.

On the loss of galleries - the agriculture one in particular was incredibly dated. While it had a 'ladybird' charm, I'm not sure we should be mourning its loss from a landmark world-class museum.

On the other hand, with you on touchscreen descriptions. Touchscreens can be superb when they are used to do something that you can't do with paper or video - the Maritime Museum did one of the Battle of Trafalgar across something like a 3x2m touchscreen - the full battle was animated as a map and you could touch a ship as it moved to find out where it was from and what happened to it - genuinely couldn't have been done any other way.

Will | 13.09.19 - 12:41 p.m. | #

I enjoyed the agricultural display on my last visit precisely because it was so dated - a perfect 'museum piece'. Perhaps there should be a museum museum for suchlike. I'd go.

NickW | 13.09.19 - 2:12 p.m. | #

I have visited the major London museums in what I would call their classic states. I have also seen them in their updated modes. I have never cared for the push-a-button and run-to-the-next-one arrangements that are seemingly geared to hyperactive six year olds. When I ventured to push one and then wondered what did it do? Did it do anything, or is it not working?

Larry B | 13.09.19 - 10:25 p.m. | #

Gschwendtner - now there's a name with a world-beating consonant-to-vowel ratio. It even beats Knightsbridge.

Peter CS | 14.09.19 - 1:01 p.m. | #

I can recall in the early 1960’s the basement had a mock up of a coal mine . Anyone know when this experience was stripped out ?

Bob | 16.09.19 - 12:41 a.m. | #

When I worked just around the corner I used to visit the Science Museum regularly. It's a shock to hear that so many of my favourite parts have been replaced with newer, more minimalist experiences.

I wonder how much time the excellent but dated minerals gallery at the top of the Natural History Museum has left in this world. If can't be long - it's duplicated to an extent by the "Earth's Treasury" gallery, it looks dull at first sight, and it has no buttons to press.

drfoop | 16.09.19 - 2:25 p.m. | #











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