Audioguía Physics Cabinet: Mechanics Corridor

Applied mechanics and hydraulics are the disciplines represented by the collection displayed in the Corridor, which largely comes from the ancient Cabinet of Mechanics, merged into the Physics one in 1879.

During the nineteenth century, the first Industrial Revolution caused profound transformations in the production processes and in the lifestyle of the communities.

It was in those years that, among other things, the figure of the modern mechanical engineer was born, the study of machines became a real science and their construction did not deal exclusively with the empirical phase. For example, the machines started being studied not only as a whole but also considering the various elements they were made of: kinematics was born, that branch of mechanics that studies the movement of bodies without taking into consideration the causes that provoke it.

In order for the machines to function at their best, it was then necessary to measure their characteristics and performances: hence the need for measuring instruments such as pressure gauges, dynamometers, and indicators.

A large number of working educational models of the main operating and hydraulic machines completes the section: these are models of some motors as well as the individual elements they are made of, water wheels, pumps, and whirlwinds, with their relative measuring instruments.