Inspiring and intriguing, the new Information Age gallery at the Science Museum works at every level

How to achieve this, again, is not clear. In our world of instant celebrity and the fast buck, the lure of putting in effort to create things is not as universally strong as it was in the pioneering days of engineering and technology. However, to hold up our hands and say 'all is lost' is premature. There are numerous ways of firing the imagination of the young: some requiring co-ordination, time and effort. Others come under the category of 'low hanging fruit'. One such could be a trip to London's Science Museum, which has just opened the Information Age gallery; its most ambitious project for more than a decade. At 2500m2, it occupies the largest space within the Museum, cost £15.6million and contains around 800 objects from the Museum's collections. Lead Curator Tilly Blyth commented: "One of our remits is to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists, but I would like to think that people can also come here for fun, for a great day out and maybe be inspired in different ways. Some of the objects are very beautiful – wonderful designs – so I think there is something for everyone in the museum. People don't just come here because they want to be a scientist." Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder and the object that dominates the gallery is the aerial tuning inductor from Rugby radio station. "It's a beautiful, beautiful object – about 6m high and 8m wide – and is a series of wooden coils with cable wrapped around them," Blyth enthused. "For us, it really is at the heart of what we are trying to do. We want to invite people to look beyond their own devices; we are used to our TVs and our mobile phones, but to see such an extraordinary object when you come into the gallery makes you think that you don't know everything there is to know about communications – there is something new to learn." The original tuning coil at Rugby was developed in 1926, then lost in a fire. It was rebuilt in 1943 and this is the object on display in the Museum. Its purpose was to send very low frequency signals around the world. "The wonderful thing about very low frequency signals is that they curve around the curvature of the earth and they can propagate through water," said Blyth. "So it is not just a way of talking about history, it is also talking about the science. We can start to talk to visitors about the electromagnetic spectrum, why the mobile phone uses a much higher frequency and what does that mean in terms of the amount of information it can carry, compared to the very small amounts of information –like Morse code – carried by very low frequencies." The Rugby coil sent Morse Code to all corners of the Empire. Later, during the Cold War, the coil was used to send messages to Britain's submarine fleet. Blyth said: "It was in use pretty much until BT donated it to us, which was only a few years ago." Whilst the Rugby tuning coil is the centre piece of the Information Age gallery, there are six 'networks' around it that explore how the modern connected world was created. These networks are called: The Cable; Broadcast; The Exchange; The Constellation; The Web; and The Cell. Blyth explained the idea: "Each is a technological network, but is also a network of people and ideas and places. Within each of these networks, we have 'story boxes' – 6m high spaces which are not so much about the historic collections, but more about the experience of that network; its essence if you like. "For example, the one in The Cell is on mobile data. It is very much an experience in which you can use your mobile phone to interact with the stories and to send images and similar to the box. In that instance, we are trying to get people to think about the larger issues around data and to share how they use their phone and what that says about them as an individual." Some of the highlights in the other networks include: • The Cable This area includes sections the first transatlantic cable from 1858 and 1865, as well as the mirror galvanometer that read the messages delivered via the first cable in 1858. Further exhibits illustrate the development of the electric telegraph, including a printing telegraph used to send stock exchange prices to customers and a full reconstruction of a typical Marconi radio cabin that would have been used on ships such as Titanic. • The Exchange Highlights in this network include objects that chart the development of the telephone handset and the exchange, including a large section of the manual telephone exchange at Enfield that was used from 1900 until 1961, when it became automatic. • Broadcast Rare objects include the television receiving apparatus used by John Logie Baird in his early demonstration of the technology to members of the Royal Institution in 1926 and 2LO, the BBC's first radio transmitter. This was first deployed by the BBC in 1922 to send radio transmissions to London from its base in the Strand. The museum has added an audio installation to this to show some of the radio receivers that would have been used at the same time as 2LO. Blyth commented: "It it wasn't long before the network was extended beyond London, but it is a lovely early story that allows us to plot the passage from radio onto television." • The Constellation Visitors can get up close to a real communications satellite as well as other models and equipment. • The Web Important objects include the NeXT cube – the actual device used by Tim Berners-Lee to design the World Wide Web. Also on display is the CDC 6600 – developed during the Cold War and widely regarded as the world's first supercomputer – and a BESM-6, a Russian supercomputer with comparable speed. • The Cell This section features a range of mobile telephone equipment and illustrates the huge impact of the mobile phone on developing countries, such as Cameroon in Africa. It highlights the transition of the mobile device from a phone to a ubiquitous device supporting many aspects of modern lives. Showstoppers In terms of showstoppers, Blyth picks out the Rugby coil, the 2LO and the Pilot ACE. "The Automatic Computing Engine – or ACE – was designed by Alan Turing when he was at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington," explained Blyth. "It wasn't built because I think there were various disagreements at the NPL, but his designs were also a bit difficult to follow. What resulted from this was the machine we now call the Pilot ACE machine. When it first ran its first programmes in 1950, it was for a short while the fastest computer in the world." In keeping with the theme in the rest of the gallery, Pilot ACE earns its spot in the gallery not just because of its place in the computer family tree, but because of its wider impact on people that other computers did not have. Blyth said: "There were a handful of machines around at the time – like the EDSAC computer developed at Cambridge – and Turing went off to Massachusetts to seed ENIAC, we think. But the thing that Pilot ACE did was really demonstrate the usefulness of computers. It wasn't just something that was used by NPL, but lots of companies also came to the NPL to use it." For each of the milestones – 'transforming events' as Blyth puts it – in technological development, the gallery has endeavoured to bring people to the fore. "It is very important that people feel part of this," she said. "It is not just technology in isolation. While it is the result of human ingenuity and great inventors, users are really important in how this technology was shaped and how useful it became to all of us. So you won't just hear the stories of Alexander Grahame Bell and Alan Turing, you'll also hear the stories of the women who worked on the manual telephone exchanges putting the calls through. There are stories of people in Cameroon using mobile technology in innovative ways and setting up companies to enable them to bring mobile technology to a much broader group of people." The Cameroon story is interesting as it demonstrates how different user scenarios can evolve. Originally, mobile phones were too expensive for individual ownership, so they were set up in call boxes for community use. Then phones became cheaper, but usage remained expensive, so users adopted 'beeping' – the practice of letting the phone ring a certain number of times to convey a simple message. "These stories show the differences in how we use mobile technology," said Blyth. Among the sponsors of the new gallery are the IET, BT, Cambridge Wireless, Motorola, Accenture, Google and ARM, but Blyth insists that 'editorial control' of the content remains entirely with the gallery. However, that does not mean there are no contributions from these companies. Google was instrumental in telling the story of Google Earth; not originally a Google development, but something which came from a small Silicon Valley company acquired by Google. Blyth added: "ARM has been brilliant and has been mainly interested in the learning agenda; it really want to inspire a new generation of engineers and came on board because it thought this might make a difference. "It is very much trying to push what we do in our workshop space, our coding activities. I am really proud to have ARM in the gallery – it is important that people know about the company. Many think we don't do this kind of work anymore, and all the while, ARM is taking over the world quietly. A lot of people don't realise so many products are based on ARM's technology. If we can help spread that knowledge, then it will be a good thing." The gallery is not intended to be too insular, too nationalistic; there are exhibits and references from around the world. However, Blyth concluded: "We have tried to take a global view, but this is the London Science Museum and it is important to tell a British story. If we don't tell it, then nobody will."