Silver

Andrea Sella, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at University College London, explores the art and science of silver. Nina Gilbey at the London Jewellery Workshop teaches him how to work the metal and make a silver ring, and at the Science Museum he admires the handiwork of silversmiths who fashioned an elaborate microscope for King George the Third.

Rupert Cole, Curator of Chemistry at the Science Museum, shows Andrea a silver thimble that was used (with some zinc and a few drops of an acid) to generate an electric current that was sent through a transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866. And Andrea finds out about silver's antibacterial properties from Jean-Yves Maillard, Professor of Pharmaceutical Microbiology at Cardiff University.