Science history and attitudes towards material culture between the wars

Mr Tom Scheinfeldt

During the 1920s and 1930s, the history of science came to new importance in the university and new popularity among the masses. Many academic history of science departments in European and American universities find their origins in the inter-war period, and most of our major science museums - including the museum in Oxford - opened or re-opened their doors to great success in this period. Yet the widespread interest in science history was not uniform. Although these different contexts and their practitioners shared the common ground of positivism and the experience of war, nevertheless their focuses, practices, associations and publics differed greatly. One area of outstanding difference was in attitudes toward material culture. Naturally, practitioners in the science museum took a greater interest in material culture than their counterparts in the academy, but this difference in interest cannot simply be attributed to relative proximity or distance to scientific instruments. Rather, differing attitudes toward material culture among different groups of practitioners must be understood in the context of contemporary negotiations about the role and importance of science history. These negotiations involved important questions as to the place of science history in society, the appropriate identity for a practitioner and his public and the role of science history in the post-war work of reconstruction. This paper will examine the centrality of material culture in these negotiations and their continued consequence for scientific instrument studies and the history of our discipline.

History of science museums, science and technical museums, historical heritage at scientific research institutes, science centres: what future for communication of science and technology and for the dissemination of scientific and technological culture?

Professor Pasquale Tucci

Tremendous changes have taken place in scientific museums in our century. They are characterized by two features:

1. the interaction between visitors and objects exhibited has been growing with increasing pace (dioramas, push-button, working replicas of historical artefacts, exhibits)
2. the conservation of historical instruments and devices is no longer considered a privileged road for the dissemination of scientific culture (Science Centres). In the first half of our century this trend has been encouraged by the positivistic and neo-positivistic approach to science, and in the second half of our century by the philosophy of ‘learning by doing’: the results have been a neglect of the history of science and instrumentation

During the last few years a debate was started by a few about the inevitability of this trend. Others have begun to show in concrete terms how history of science museums and collections can be at the same time a qualified environment for preservation of scientific instruments and for dissemination of scientific culture.

From Nizhegorodskaya Radio Laboratories to the Museum of Science

Professor Vladimir Schurov

In 1918 in Nizhny Novgorod (1932-1991 – then called Gorky City) one of the first radio laboratories in Russia was organized. From 1918 until 1928 under the leadership of M.A. Bonch-Bruevich, the famous manager of Soviet science, there worked there a number of prominent scientists, including V. P. Vologdin, A. F. Schorin, and V. K. Lebedinsky. They established the foundation of the Soviet radio in science, engineering, technology, industry and educational achievements. In 1974, in Nizhny Novgorod, the Museum ‘Nizhegorodskaya Radio Laboratories’, was founded. This paper deals with the first period of Russian radio history. A considerable part deals with A. S. Popov, who was among the first to apply electromagnetic waves. In 1895 Popov improved the coherer detector which was at the basis of his wireless set.

In the Museum the radio technology of the Soviet period is widely represented. There are exhibits on radio broadcasting, electronics and other related fields of physics. Also demonstrated are specimens of the modern radio industry and allied projects from the Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Science, the Radio-Physics Research Institute (NIRFI), the State Research Institute of Radio and Communications (NIIRS), and others. In 1999 the Museum ‘Nizhegorodskaya Radio Laboratories’ was included in the structure of the Nizhegorodsky State University, and with museums and collections of the University formed the Museum of Science of the Nizhegorodsky State University.

The main task of the Museum of Science is to integrate the achievements of science and technology in the Nizhegorodsky region and to construct all regional technical museums data-bases. The Museum’s functions include scientific research, educational programmes and exhibitions.