The Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers is one of the 108 Livery Companies of the City of London. The Company promotes the craft of scientific instrument-making, the exchange of ideas and information between members and guests, and science generally by offering scholarships to science students.
The organisation was originally formed in 1956 and the City granted it livery status in 1964. It ranks 84th in the order of precedence for the Livery Companies.
Its motto is Sine Nobis Scientia Languet, translated from Latin as Science Languishes Without Us.
The Company's livery hall, the Scientific Instrument Makers' Hall, is located just outside the City, on Montague Close, by the southern end of London Bridge, in the borough of Southwark.
Famous quotes containing the words company, scientific, instrument and/or makers:
“The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company has been superseded by the new aristocratic idea that the company was not worthy of the joke. They have introduced an almost insane individualism into that one form of intercourse which is specially and uproariously communal. They have made even levities into secrets. They have made laughter lonelier than tears.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“If a man is a good lawyer, a good physician, a good engineer ... he may be a fool in every other capacity. But no deficiency or mistake of judgment is forgiven to a woman ... and should she fail anywhere, if she has any scientific attainment, or artistic faculty, instead of standing her interest as an excuse, it is censured as an aggravation and offence.”
—E.P.P., U.S. women’s magazine contributor. The Una, p. 28 ( February 1855)
“People of talent resemble a musical instrument more closely than they do a musician. Without outside help, they produce not a single sound, but given even the slightest touch, and a magnificent tune emanates from them.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)