Physics

History of Science Museum, Oxford

Our most famous physics exhibit is surely the blackboard written on by Albert Einstein (1879–1955) when he gave a series of lectures in Oxford in 1931, but our collections contain many more examples of apparatus and items with which physicists through the ages sought to understand the workings of the Universe. These include an early air pump used by Francis Hauksbee (1660–1713) to create a vacuum, a part from Robert Boyle’s (1627–91) original air pump, and many early examples of electrical instruments.