Clarendon Laboratory

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The Clarendon Laboratory in Oxford, England (not to be confused with the Clarendon Building, also in Oxford) is part of the Physics Department at Oxford University. It houses the atomic and laser physics and condensed matter physics groups within the Department, although four other Oxford Physics groups are not based in the Clarendon Lab. The Oxford Centre for Quantum Computation is also housed in the laboratory.

The Clarendon is named after Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, whose trustees paid £10,000 for the building of the original laboratory, completed in 1872, making it the oldest purpose-built physics laboratory in England. The original building, substantially enlarged, is now part of the Oxford Earth Sciences Department.

The Oxford Electric Bell apparatus (also known as the Clarendon Dry Pile), constructed in 1840, is located in the foyer of the Clarendon Laboratory.

[edit] External links

• A brief history of Physics at Oxford
• A longer history of Physics at Oxford