Public Instruments of Precision

Over the decades, our museum in Edinburgh has displayed a small number of working scientific instruments to the visiting public, giving access to precise readings of phenomena including the time, weather and ground tremors. They coexisted on the galleries with objects which worked as demonstrations and interactives, and which have a similarity to interactives and moving demonstration objects that are presently in the galleries. They provided access to the real objects of science in ways in which retired relics or replication cannot. These working instruments of public precision have previously been considered separately, each as part of the subject that they related to, such as featuring as part of the story of the Edinburgh time service, or in listing of seismographs. In this presentation I will explore them together as a type of exhibit, with a focus on the public accessibility of the working instruments and how this was portrayed by the museum and, where evidence exists, how this access was received by the visitors.