Curious Edinburgh - Curious Edinburgh

Peter Higgs plaque

History of Physics, History of Science Comments Off

Apr 192016

5 Roxburgh Street, Edinburgh EH8 9TA

Peter Higgs is famous for predicting the existence of a new fundamental subatomic particle, now named in his honour the ‘Higgs boson’, while a Lecturer at the Tait Institute of Mathematical Physics in Edinburgh. Its existence solves the problem of why electrons and quarks have mass. He predicted its existence in 1964 in a paper written in a flat at 5 Roxburgh Street. However, was not until 2012 that it was confirmed that it existed by the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest scientific instrument, near Geneva. This discovery earned Higgs the Nobel Prize for Physics.

No public access.

Peter Higgs (1929– ).

Peter Higgs plaque.

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Birthplace of James Clerk Maxwell

History of Physics, History of Science 1 Response »

Apr 172016

14 India Street, Edinburgh EH3 6EZ

Now home to a museum of his life and work, this was the childhood home of James Clerk Maxwell, famous for his revolutionary work on electromagnetism and the kinetic theory of gases. Maxwell was born here in 1831. His A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field (1865) demonstrated that both electric and magnetic fields and light travel through space as waves at the speed of light. This work laid the foundations for the invention of the radio. Clerk Maxwell’s was perhaps the most important contribution to theoretical physics between Newton and Einstein.

The house is now owned by the James Clerk Maxwell Foundation and my be visited by appointment.

Statue to James Clerk Maxwell by Alexander Stoddart, George Street, Edinburgh, unveiled 2008.

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–79).

Plaque at the birthplace of James Clerk Maxwell.

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Challenger Expedition offices

History of Science, Natural History, Oceanography Comments Off

Apr 172016

32 Queen Street, Edinburgh EH2 1JX

Between the December 1872 and May 1876 the Challenger Expedition circumnavigated the globe and laid the foundations for modern oceanography. It had been organised by the Royal Society of London at the suggestion of Charles Wyville Thomson, Edinburgh University’s professor of natural history, and its offices were here at 32 Queen Street. The expedition took soundings, samples of sea water and collected specimens of marine life while traversing 68,890 nautical miles across the oceans of the world. The report of the expedition, which was published between 1885 and 1895, came to 50 fat volumes.

No public access.

The HMS Challenger.

Charles Wyville Thompson (1830–82).

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Charles Darwin’s lodgings

Biology, History of Science, Natural History Comments Off

Apr 172016

11 Lothian Street, Edinburgh EH1 1HE

It was here that Charles Darwin lodged in the house of Mrs Mackay when a medical student in Edinburgh in 1825-27. He was not an enthusiastic student and left without finishing his degree. In Edinburgh he met Robert Edmond Grant, a lecturer in John Barclay’s anatomy school and an enthusiastic advocate of evolution. On one of their regular zoological collecting trips together Grant apparently ‘burst forth in admiration’ of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s evolutionary theories. Darwin later claimed, perhaps disingenuously, that he had listened to Grant ‘as far as I can judge, without any effect on my mind’.

No public access. The original building no longer survives.

Charles Darwin (1809–82).

Robert Edmond Grant (1793-1874).

Plaque marking the site of Darwin’s lodgings.

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Old University Museum of Natural History

History of Science, Natural History Comments Off

Apr 172016

Talbot Rice Gallery, Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh EH8 9YL

Until 1861 Edinburgh University’s museum was housed in what is now the Talbot Rice Gallery. The collection was founded by Sir Robert Sibbald in 1692 and greatly expanded by Robert Jameson, Edinburgh’s professor of natural history from 1804 to 1854. It contained the most important natural history collection in Britain after London’s British Museum. Jameson was notorious for denying access to scholars to whom he took a dislike, including a number of members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He also famously ‘mislaid’ the geological collection of James Hutton, whose theories he did not agree with.

Admission to the Talbot Rice Gallery is free.

The Natural History Museum of the University of Edinburgh in Robert Jameson’s day.

Portrait of Robert Jameson (1774–1854) by one of his students, c.1831.

Sir Godfrey Thomson plaque

History of Science, Psychology Comments Off

Apr 172016

Moray House, Holyrood Road, EH8 8AQ

On this building you will find a plaque dedicated to Sir Godfrey Thomson, a pioneer of research into human intelligence. Thompson worked on the Scottish Mental Surveys of 1932 and 1947, which measured the intelligence of most of the children born in Scotland in 1921 and 1936 respectively. The data collected was rediscovered in the late 1990s by Ian Deary and Lawrence Whalley. Together with new data from the now elderly participants in the original survey, it has formed the basis of an important research programme exploring the effects of aging on the brain.

No public access.

Sir Godfrey Thomson (1881–1955).

Plaque to Sir Godfrey Thomson on Thomson’s Land, University of Edinburgh

Plaque to Sir Godfrey Thompson in St John’s Street.

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House of Dawson Fyers Duckworth Turner

History of Medicine, History of Science Comments Off

Apr 172016

57 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JU

Dawson Fyers Duckworth Turner was a physician who had worked at a number of Edinburgh hospitals. He was a pioneer of the development of x-rays in medicine. Beginning in 1896, only one year after x-rays had been discovered by Roentgen, he set up an experimental x-ray apparatus at his house in George Square. He used this to demonstrate the power of x-rays to show bones and foreign objects through soft tissues. Not realising how dangerous the rays were, his experiments cost him three fingers and an eye.

No public access.

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Lothian Healthe Service Archives: Pioneering radiology in Edinburgh

The Edinburgh Seven

History of Medicine, History of Science Comments Off

Apr 172016

Royal College of Surgeons, Nicolson St, Edinburgh EH8 9BZ

A notorious riot took place on this spot at the doors of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1870 when male medical students attempted to prevent female students from taking an anatomy exam. The first group of female students, known as the Edinburgh Seven, were Sophia Jex-Blake, Isabel Thorne, Edith Pechey, Matilda Chaplin, Helen Evans, Mary Anderson, and Emily Bovell. Several went on to distinguished medical careers, including the leader of the group, Jex-Blake, who set up the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women, and Chaplin, who founded a school of midwifery in Tokyo.

Sophia Jex-Blake (1840–1912).

Plaque to the Edinburgh Seven, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

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House of James Young Simpson

History of Medicine, History of Science 1 Response »

Apr 172016

52 Queen Street, Edinburgh EH2 3NS

In this house on 4 November 1847 James Young Simpson, professor of medicine and midwifery at Edinburgh University, discovered the effects of chloroform, the first widely used anaesthetic. Simpson and some of his medical friends used to spend their evenings testing the effects of various chemical substances on themselves in the hope of finding an effective anaesthetic. On this particular evening they decided to try chloroform, which had first been sythesised in 1831. This instantly rendered all three of them unconscious until the next morning. On waking up, Simpson realised he had found what he was looking for.

No public access.

James Young Simpson (1811–70).

Plaque on the wall of James Young Simpson’s former house.

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Grave of Sir Robert Sibbald

History of Medicine, History of Science Comments Off

Apr 172016

Greyfriars Cemetery, Candlemaker Row, Edinburgh EH1 2QQ

Sir Robert Sibbald was a graduate of the University of Leiden, then the foremost centre for medical education in Europe. In 1685 he became the University of Edinburgh’s first professor of medicine, although as far as we know if never actually gave any lectures. He was a founder of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and, along with Sir Andrew Balfour, established the city’s first botanical gardens in 1670. He was a keen collector natural history specimens, which he left to the university in his will. These formed the original core of the University Museum’s famous natural history collection.

Sir Robert Sibbald (1641–1722).

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