ABSTRACT

The number of public places for science increased from the mid-nineteenth century. New media directed towards the upper classes, the growing middle class and even the new working class now presented a world of exotic adventure and strange knowledge. 2 Moreover a plethora of opportunities to experience science first hand was offered, not only in text and images, but also in settings giving the audience the illusion of being in the rainforest watching the wildlife or going back millions of years in Earth’s history. Learning about science was linked to ideas of public enlightenment, education and entertainment in one package combining armchair reading with scientific exploration in safe environments. It was not enough to satisfy one’s scientific curiosity through books and magazines. More was needed and more was offered, as one of the most prolific Danish science popularizers and a naturalist by training, Jens Orten Bøving-Petersen, put it in 1912: ‘Knowledge of rocks and minerals is not gained through reading and images. What is needed is looking for yourself – in the collections of the museums and in nature.’ 3 The new public places for science increased the potential for exhibitors, inventors and scientists to make scientific knowledge available to a wider audience. However, science in the popularized version was very different from that of the research laboratory. By offering the very distant past and the glorious future and by appealing to people’s curiosity, hope and horror, the real innovation of popular science at exhibitions, in museums and in scientific gardens was ‘a science for the people’ in ways no book or journal could ever match. Instrumental in its success was the power of place. 4