Site of the first balloon ascent in Britain

General Register House, 2 Princes Street, Edinburgh EH1 3YY

General Register House

James Tytler, who made the first successful balloon ascent in Britain in Edinburgh, exhibited his ‘Grand Edinburgh Fire Balloon’ here in Robert Adam’s Register House in 1784. Protected by a cork jacket, he rose more than 100 metres into the air and travelled almost a kilometre. Tytler was a multi-talented individual who had made a living at various times as a surgeon, writer, publisher, composer and poet before his foray into aeronautics. He had to flee to Ireland in 1792 after being arrested for producing subversive pamphlets, before emigrating to America a few years later.

The General Register House houses the National Records of Scotland and is open to the public.

James Tytler (1745–1804).

James Tytler (1745–1804).

James Tytler's 'Edinburgh Fire Balloon', 1784.

James Tytler’s ‘Edinburgh Fire Balloon’, 1784.

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Sir David Brewster’s Edinburgh residence

10 Coates Crescent, Edinburgh EH3 7AL

David Brewster's house

This house was Sir David Brewster’s Edinburgh residence until his death in 1868. Brewster is today best known as the inventor of the kaleidoscope. His invention could have made him a very wealthy man, but he neglected to patent it soon enough, and so earned very little  from his invention. He was also a pioneer photographer and friend of William Henry Fox Talbot. Brewster made important contributions to the science of optics, but his reputation suffered because he continued to champion the particle theory of light after the wave theory had been accepted by most other physicists.

No public access.

David Brewster (1781–1868).

David Brewster (1781–1868).

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Peter Higgs plaque

5 Roxburgh Street, Edinburgh EH8 9TA

Peter Higgs plaque

Peter Higgs is famous for predicting the existence of a new fundamental subatomic particle, now named in his honour the ‘Higgs boson’, while a Lecturer at the Tait Institute of Mathematical Physics in Edinburgh. Its existence solves the problem of why electrons and quarks have mass. He predicted its existence in 1964 in a paper written in a flat at 5 Roxburgh Street. However, was not until 2012 that it was confirmed that it existed by the Large Hadron Collider, the worlds largest scientific instrument, near Geneva. This discovery earned Higgs the Nobel Prize for Physics.

No public access.

Peter Higgs (1929– ).

Peter Higgs (1929– ).

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Birthplace of James Clerk Maxwell

14 India Street, Edinburgh EH3 6EZ

Birthplace of James Clerk Maxwell

Now home to a museum of his life and work, this was the childhood home of James Clerk Maxwell, famous for his revolutionary work on electromagnetism and the kinetic theory of gases. Maxwell was born here in 1831. His A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field (1865) demonstrated that both electric and magnetic fields and light travel through space as waves at the speed of light. This work laid the foundations for the invention of the radio. Clerk Maxwell’s was perhaps the most important contribution to theoretical physics between Newton and Einstein.

The house is now owned by the James Clerk Maxwell Foundation and my be visited by appointment.

Statue to James Clerk Maxwell by Alexander Stoddart, George Street, Edinburgh, unveiled 2008.

Statue to James Clerk Maxwell by Alexander Stoddart, George Street, Edinburgh, unveiled 2008.

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–79).

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–79).

Plaque at the birthplace of James Clerk Maxwell.

Plaque at the birthplace of James Clerk Maxwell.

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