Michael Ellis, Future of Mobility Minister at Department for Transport, said, ‘Self-driving technologies have tremendous potential for road safety, mobility and the economy, and the Government is exploring these opportunities through its Future of Mobility Grand Challenge. It is great to see the Science Museum exploring this exciting innovation and its implications for future transport, and inspire the next generation of engineers.’ The Energy Café, The Diner, Shake Bar, Gallery Café, main shop and Power Up shop are open all week for you to enjoy. The Basement Café is open during school holidays. The National Collections Centre is home to the Science Museum’s world-class Library and Archive collection of over half a million items. Sir Ian Blatchford, Director and Chief Executive of the Science Museum Group, said: ‘Science fiction invites us all to be explorers, venturing across time and space while reflecting on the deepest existential question there is – what makes us human? Our ambitious exhibition is unlike any other and I cannot wait for visitors to join us on this immersive and interactive journey through the extraordinary worlds of science fiction and scientific discovery.’ Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination is curated by the Science Museum and designed by Framestore, the BAFTA and Academy Award winning creative studio. The exhibition is kindly supported by the Blavatnik Family Foundation as the Major Funder.

The Booker Prize-nominated Real Life is a campus novel set over a long weekend in the American mid-west. It follows Wallace, a biochemistry PhD student, and his interactions with his fellow doctoral students and supervisors.This is a novel which, as the title suggests, is very true to the everyday experience of many people in the scientific community. It is also a novel about how scary academic life can be. Much like the work of a writer like Sally Rooney, it is also about how isolating it can be to be young, and about the challenges of love. It is a book that feels thoroughly American yet also universal. It is a novel about science, but it is also a mirror on society. In Land, visitors can get up close with examples of real self-driving vehicles. Part of the Science Museum Group collection, the classic 1960 Citroen DS19 car was modified in the UK to “self-drive” in early experiments in driverless technology. More modern examples include the Robocar, a self-driving electric racing car and the Westfield POD, a fully electric autonomous vehicle for first/last-mile journeys. On display will also be artist Dominic Wilcox’s Stained Glass Driverless Sleeper Car of the Future – a speculative take on the safety of road travel guaranteed by artificial intelligence. Sam Grant, Chief Marketing Officer of Samsung Electronics UK, said, ‘Artificial intelligence is already part of our day-to-day lives and, as a society, we are on the brink of realising its potential to make our lives easier. At Samsung we’re striving to shape this new era of connected living, where products and services seamlessly interact with one another. We are committed to the development of AI and we’ve opened AI research centres all over the world, including one here in the UK in Cambridge. We believe AI should provide a tangible benefit and meaningful value to the end user, so the Driverless: who is in control? exhibition at the Science Museum is a great opportunity for the public to explore the technology that will soon shape our world.’ The judges made their final selection from 97 eligible titles submitted by 40 UK publishing imprints and independent authors. The award is presented for the best science fiction novel of the year, and selected from a list of novels whose UK first edition was published in the previous calendar year. On Wednesday 6 December the gallery will open at the later time of 12.00 and close at 16.00 (last entry at 14.30). The show space will also be closed all day.

The exhibition also explores artificial intelligences we have engineered and imagined, from Maria in Metropolis and HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey to today’s companion robots. Are these artificial beings just reflections of ourselves and our fears, or could they ever be alive like us? To help answer these questions, visitors can examine how AI is already shaping our societies in unexpected ways such as through biases in programming which create discriminatory algorithms. Flight will open at 11.00 on Saturday 27 January 2024 and be closed all day on Tuesday 26 March 2024.This will be assessed by our staff on a case-by-case basis, and where access is permitted, you will be offered a Friday visit providing that we have available space and that you agree to abide by our Covid-19 access arrangements. Direct Line Group is headquartered in Bromley. Through its number of well known brands the Group offers a wide range of general insurance products to consumers. These brands include Direct Line, Churchill and Privilege. The Group also provides insurance services for third parties through its partnerships division, Direct Line Group Partnerships. In the commercial sector, the Group's NIG and Direct Line for Business operations offer insurance products for businesses distributed through brokers or direct, respectively. About PwC

Dr Andrew M. Butler represented the Arthur C. Clarke Award directors in a non-voting role as the Chair of the Judges. she plates thousands of tiny cultures, clumps of greyish cells that grow and divide, or else die, in pools of brilliant red media. Wallace once found her there, like stumbling upon a spirit in a myth. She had been dabbing tears from her eyes with her bare forearm, dabbing and pipetting simultaneously in one unbroken motion. She had a heavy scent to her, like salt water.’ (p. 63) Volume 14 No.4 (Oct 1 1996) of the “Worm Breeder’s Gazette”, an amateur journal for researchers working on the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegan from the Science Museum Group Collection. Gavin Fox, Creative Director at Framestore, said: 'Framestore have been taking people to fantastical worlds for many years and our dedicated immersive team’s work in theme parks and attractions has raised this to new levels. Working alongside P&P Projects, one of the foremost scenic design and build companies in the world, we’re delighted to take our immersive work to new heights, to outer space even, to bring this ambitious, innovative and exciting concept to life for the Science Museum.' Our picnic areas are free-flow and don't require pre-booking so there's no need to request a timeslot.Please send your enquiries to [email protected] and we will respond within 20 working days. We also offer a free enquiry service to help you find out more about the items in the Science Museum Library and Archive Collections. Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination will be staged in the museum’s largest exhibition space, which covers an area of 1,100m2. The Arthur C. Clarke Awards are honoured to reveal this year’s nominees with the Science Museum once again as part of their Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination exhibition celebrations, and without further ado the shortlist for the 2023 Arthur C. Clarke Award science fiction book of the year is… Atmosphere closed permanently on 20 March 2022—we will open a new gallery related to climate change in 2024. Sham Ahmed, Managing Director at MathWorks UK, said, ‘MathWorks is proud to be partnering with the Science Museum to highlight applications of Artificial Intelligence and deep learning in autonomous vehicles. Investment in these areas is growing year on year, and with driver assistance systems in many of the vehicles on the road today, autonomy is already woven into our everyday lives. This trend is set to increase and, with this in mind, the launch of Driverless couldn’t be better timed.’