Eccentricity: Unexpected Objects and Irregular Behaviour

From 29 Jun 2011 to 15 Oct 2011

Until 16 October. This intriguing exhibition examines the links between Oxford and the eccentricity so often displayed by the city's noted scientists, such as Charles Daubeny who once kept caged monkeys at the gates of the Botanic Garden.

Indeed so strong is the myth that reality has frequently spilled over into popular fiction, with many instances of invented madcap Oxford academics appearing in literature and film.

In paying homage to the bizarre, the Museum of the History of Science has over the years acquired many unexpected artefacts: everything from a collection of typewriters, a Japanese mechanical fly-trap, a 19th-century clockwork bird-scarer and an astrolabe that once belonged to Nostradamus - all currently on show!