Woodberry at Oxford 2013: July 2

After our first few days of staying at Brasenose College and getting acquainted with the city of Oxford we headed out to check out a city a little bit bigger, London. When we first arrived in London after an hour-long train ride, we headed to the Royal Society. The Royal Society, founded in 1660 for the promotion of “natural knowledge” offers a Scientific Exhibition for one week each year, which we were fortunate enough to attend and found very interesting. It consisted of a lot different exhibits by various university research groups, whose scientists were present to educate us and many other people on all areas of science ranging from stem cell research to learning about dark matter and the Higgs Boson. In my personal preference the most interesting exhibition was about stem cell research, which included a pretty cool 3-D plastic model printer. After leaving the Royal Society we ate lunch on the steps between The Mall and Carlton House Terrace. Next we headed to the Museum of Natural History to learn about the history of Evolution and the ideas of Natural Selection developed by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace. As we were orienting ourselves in the entrance hall of this museum, we surprisingly ran into a Woodberry graduate, Doug Smith, from the class of ’04 and a former advisee of Mr. Kendall. The Science Museum was the last stop in London for the day. We got to walk through a very fascinating exhibit on Alan Turing, code breaking and its impact on World War II. Then we returned to Paddington Station by walking across Hyde Park. After reading one of the local newspapers on the way back from London, I was excited to see that the weather is looking good for this next week. To end the day we went out to dinner at Pizza Hut to try it Oxford style.

Submitted by Steve Nugent.