On a weekend in April during my U.K. business trip I was visiting a friend of mine who lives there. He suggested that we stop by Science Museum in London. As both of us could not come up with a better way of killing time, I agreed to his suggestion.

The hall we walked in first was full of steam engines of all kinds; some were huge and massive. The symbols of Industrial Revolution! There were Newcomen steam engines, predecessors to James Watt’s famous steam engines from early 18th century. James Watt’s invention did not come overnight, as the use of steam to generate mechanical power was already in place when he began his work as an engineer in the 1760’s. He was inspired to improve the efficiency of the Newcomen steam engine after one was sent to him to repair. He added a cooling system or condenser separate from the main cylinder in order to cool the used steam, which turned out to be four times more efficient than the predecessor, which Thomas Newcomen designed.

The name of Watt brought me back a memory of 20 years ago when I had an opportunity to visit Avery, one of the oldest scale manufacturers at Birmingham UK. I believe it was right after Avery was acquired by GEC, and they approached us as a possible source for products procurement. While we were taken on the factory tour going through the red brick buildings, the man who was guiding us pointed out to another brisk building across the driveway and said, “That is where James Watt worked.” The inventor of steam engine in 18th century! This incident not only made me feel closer to James Watt but also amazed me of the fact we, in infancy as a company, were invited by this company carrying such history for a possible supply of our products to them.

James Watt seems to have been a great salesman of his own machines. He went to all the trouble of obtaining a patent for his engines from British Parliament, which eventually prevented anybody else from making a steam engine of his design. He also invented the concept of horsepower. To justify his high priced steam engines, he compared his machine to a horse and estimated a horse to exert a pull of 180 lb. He described the power of his engine in relation to a horse, promoting the superiority and cost saving of his machine compared to an equivalent number of horses. He was not only a great engineer but also quite a promoter of his invention and died a wealthy businessman.

In front of “Rocket” the locomotive of George Stephenson with Mr. Tanaka who took me to Science Museum. It was constructed for 1829 Rainhill Trials. The Trials were held by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company, to find the best locomotive engine. "Rocket" outperformed all the locomotives and reached 24mph during the 20 laps of the course.
Toward the end of the tour we walked into a hall of weights and measures. As we were walking through the hall full of the weights and scales from the different parts of the world and from different eras, I became rooted to the spot by the gadget below. I was so happy to have spotted this, and had to tell my friend to take a look at it.“What do you think it is?” I asked, knowing this would not mean anything to a person outside of the weighing industry unless he would take time to read the attached descriptions patiently. I added, “This is a simple balance. Look at the positions of the weights on both arms. Figure out why it is balanced.” It would not be a big thing to most of the visitors. Actually, I would not be surprised to see all the visitors just pass by without noticing it as at best it may appear to be a scale made by an elementary school kid. That made me even happier as I realized this museum took all the trouble of creating such a gadget, though not as impressive as the massive steam engines and it is not a British invention, in order to show the mechanism that had made a top loading balance a reality. I found myself lecturing to my friend about the top loading balances, single point load cells and our latest technology – SHS!.

I assume you have figured out by now what it is and why it stood out in the weighing history. It is a Roberval mechanism: the discovery of Professor Gilles Personne de Roberval, French Mathematician in 1669, which changed the design of weighing equipment completely. He described his discovery in a thesis on what he calls his “static enigma” and explained the fact that equilibrium in his mechanism could exist even when equal weights were placed at different distances from the fulcrum .

I realize that I could not get away from my daily business even when I walked through the aisles of the Museum, and it is in fact a joyful moment when you can attach that which you see in a museum to your personal experience. In any event I hope I have convinced you enough that it is worth visiting the Science Museum when you are in London next time.