Engineering in London Study Abroad Program, Tickle College of Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Congratulations to our 2022 class of the Engineering in London (EIL) study abroad program! Photos from the banquet dinner at Brown's of Covent Garden
on Friday, July 8 are provided below. Click here for the final slideshow of the program edited by Mara Schutt.
On Tuesday evening, July 5, the EIL Students along with Profs. Berry
and Aaron visited the Royal Institution (Michael Faraday Museum) near
Green Park. In addition to visiting Faraday's Laboratory, the students
attended a (Friday) Discourse lecture entitled "Einstein's revolution: Technology for the 21st Century quantum computer" by Professor David Jamieson (University of Melbourne, Australia). His lecture was given in the Royal institution's lecture
hall, where Michael Faraday started the Christmas lectures in 1825. The
RI today is known for its science education programs, a continuation of
the tradition of scientific lectures as enlightened entertainment. The
Friday Night Discourses were formal affairs with the audience in evening
dress and the speaker by tradition had to start and stop his address as
the auditorium clock struck consecutive hours. J. J. Thomson announced
the discovery of the electron in his 1897 lecture in this room. The
Christmas Lecture program, begun by Michael Faraday and continuing
through today, is the oldest continuous science education program for
young people.
On Monday afternoon (July 4), the EIL students joined Profs. Berry
and Aaron for a visit to the Brunel Museum at Rotherhithe on
the bank of the
Thames River. In the original shaft of the tunnel (under the Thames
River) that Marc and Isambard (Kingdom) Brunel designed and built, our
guide (Khalil Mohammed) gave an excellent historical timeline for this great nineteenth
century engineering achievement. Completed in 1834, this was the
world's first underwater tunnel. Isambard Brunel was considered by many
to be the greatest engineer of Victorian England.
On a somewhat chilly Friday, July 1, the EIL students along with Profs. Berry and Aaron and Rohima Ahmed from IES visited Bletchley Park (north of London). Bletchley Park is where Alan Turing and his colleagues in Hut 8 broke the (naval) Enigma code during World War II. The students witnessed demonstrations of working Enigma, Bombe, Tunny, Harwell Dekatron, and Colossus machines. The Colossus was the world's first electric digital computer that was programmable. The Colossus computers were developed to help in the cryptanalysis of the Hitler's Lorenz cipher. Nicknamed WITCH for Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell, the Harwell Dekatron at the National Museum of Computing (NMC) is considered the oldest electronic computer that is still operational. Our NMC guide for the morning, Robert Dowell, did a fantastic job explaining both the history and design of all the early cypher and computing machines. The students utilized part of their lunch break to burn off some energy on the jungle gym equipment and with a game of ultimate frisbee near the Bletchley Park Mansion.
