Museum of the Institute of Physics
ul. Akademicka 7
20-031 Lublin
Tel. (81) 537 61 70
Director: Piotr Sagan PhD, psagan@poczta.umcs.lublin.pl
The Museum of the Institute of Physics of the Marie Curie Skłodowska University (UMCS) was established in 1967 thanks to the efforts of Wojciech Zarębski, who collaborated with Edward Dowgird of the Agricultural Academy in Lublin. It was the first interactive Museum of Physics in Europe. It was conceived as a series of cabinets both of an
experimental nature and for demonstration purposes and with the help of which visitors could carry out physics experiments. The organizers assumed that the individuals performing the experiments would have a secondary school knowledge of physics. The display cases are automated and equipped with instruction manuals. Thirty-one such cases were created of which 14 have been patented. Over the years other showcases have been created as MA dissertations in the field of physics under the supervision of Wojciech Zarębski. He was in charge of the museum until 2019, and gradually modernized and improved his kits. Apart from the aforementioned experimental cabinets, the museum also contains seven large display cases containing historical equipment or dedicated to people who contributed to the development of the UMCS’s Institute of Physics:
– Display case dedicated to Prof. Stanisław Zimecki (1881–1956), who undertook innovative observations on nuclear radiation before the Second World War (1938). After the war, he organized work in the field of physics at the Marie Curie Skłodowska University in Lublin. He contributed to setting up the Evening Classes in Engineering in Lublin (now the Lublin University of Technology);
– Display case dedicated to Prof. Włodzimierz Żuk (1916–1981), founder of the Lublin School of Mass Spectrometry, and creator of the first in Poland mass spectrometer (1948) and electromagnetic isotope separator (1963). In addition the display case contains the main components of the mass spectrometer built by Prof. Żuk;
– radio frequency spectrometer and cycloidal mass spectrometer;
– Gerhold type β spectrometer;
– vaccum tubes;
– radiation counters and computing technique;
– meters for measuring electricity and vacuum apparatus.
The Lublin ‛Museum of Physics’ is very popular. It is visited by individuals, museum lectures are also organized for school trips. The most frequent visitors are the participants in the Physics Show, which was held for the 60th time in 2019. It is estimated that several thousand people a year visit the museum. There are records which show how many times school principals have thanked the museum on behalf of teachers and pupils for meeting up with them at the various cabinets. Also many well-known figures both from Poland and abroad have given very flattering opinions about the museum, emphasizing that the form and scale of the displays is unprecedented. The museum is located in the corridors of the UMCS Institute of Physics and is open 24/24.
Piotr Sagan PhD
