Explore the history and architecture of our historic 21, Albemarle Street home with an expert member of our Collections and Heritage team, and discover the stories behind our museum displays. Our ...

Ri Masterclasses are interactive STEM enrichment workshops for school students lead by professional scientists, educators, academics, or outreach experts. Students come together from several schools ...

When ChatGPT-3 crash-landed onto our computers in November 2022, you’d have been forgiven for thinking this massive leap in artificial intelligence had sprung out of nowhere. From one day to the next, ...

As we celebrate the bicentenary of Faraday's invention of the electric motor in 1821, our Head of Heritage and Collections, Charlotte New, takes us on a voyage through time to rediscover this ...

You know the story. Two strangers locked eyes across a crowded room, and there it is: butterflies in the stomach, sparks in the air—they know they’ve found “the one”. Love at first sight is a popular ...

On 18 May 1859, the Irish physicist John Tyndall wrote in his journal ‘the subject is completely in my hands’. This is no cryptic note. Just nine days earlier he had set up his complex and clever new ...

Humphry Davy was a chemist and the first Director of the Laboratory here at the Royal Institution, taking up the post in 1801. He was central to establishing the Ri as both a popular venue for ...

Sci-fi is not all just fun and games. Megan Stephens reflects on the influence the genre has had on real-life research and technology. We’re all familiar with the trappings of science fiction, many of ...

Volunteer historian Laurence Scales explores how war surgeons operated 25 years before antibiotics were widely available, starting from a 1915 Discourse here at the Ri. Antibiotics would not be ...

Since its founding in 1799, the Royal Institution has been committed to connecting scientists and the public. Even before the term "scientist" was coined, we played a vital role in bringing scientific ...

Read about how JJ Thomson announced his discovery of the electron at the Royal Institution in this blog by our Head of Heritage and Collections. JJ Thomson, while familiar to scientists, is not ...

The mining and engineering industries in the 19th century relied heavily on gunpowder as an explosive to aid their work. However, storing and transporting gunpowder on wooden sailing ships was ...