The Science Museum

Last week I took my five-year-old son, Robert, to the Science Museum. He had always enjoyed going to museums, particularly those where you can press buttons to make things work. He did not much like the sort where there are bones and bits of pots in glass cases; but I told him the Science Museum was not like this. When I mentioned to him that we were going to the Science Museum, he looked puzzled. He asked me what there was to see there, and when I replied that there was a collection of cars, trains and airplanes, and an imitation coal-mine that he could walk into, he looked even more puzzled. But there was nothing he liked better than climbing on old railway engines, so he smiled and said he would come. I told him that we would see models of all the world's most famous ships, and of all the most useful machines that men had invented over the years; I told him that there was a part of a spaceship that he could go into, and imagine that he was far away from the Earth; and I said that we would probably see a film showing the development of science from earliest times to the present day. But there was one thing I hadn't prepared my son for. Every afternoon at four o'clock, a man switches on a very powerful electric current and makes it jump between two terminals, like a flash of lightning. There were notices making it clear that there would be a bright flash and a loud bang—but I had no idea just how loud it would be. When four o'clock came, we stood with a large crowd of people near to where this event would take place. I lifted Robert up on to my shoulders so that he would be able to see the flash more clearly—and we waited. We had not waited more than a minute or so, when a very bright flash jumped across the terminals, and at the same time, a very loud bang made everyone in the audience jump. I could feel Robert shaking with the sudden shock of the noise. I lifted him back down on to the floor, and we left the museum. He said nothing until we were outside in the street. Then he looked up at me and said, "Why do they call it the Silence Museum? It seems a very funny name to me."