science

PK Porthcurno

PK Porthcurno is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand PK Porthcurno rather than just read about it. In short: PK Porthcurno is a museum located in the small coastal village of Porthcurno Cornwall, UK. Porthcurno was the point at which many submarine telegraph cables—transatlantic and to other locations—came ashore.

Key takeaways

PK Porthcurno belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect PK Porthcurno to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of PK Porthcurno from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

PK Porthcurno is a museum located in the small coastal village of Porthcurno Cornwall, UK. Porthcurno was the point at which many submarine telegraph cables—transatlantic and to other locations—came ashore. The first cables were direct current impulse transmitters. The first cables with transistor amplifiers were laid in the 1950s. The museum, which opened in May 1998, is housed in the former telegraph facility.

History

In June 1870, the Falmouth, Gibraltar & Malta Telegraph Company of John Pender (which had been established in July 1869, with capital of £660,000 (in 1870s money)) landed the final section of the first Great Britain-India submarine cable in Porthcurno. The cable section between Carcavelos and Porthcurno was laid by the Hibernia, with the shore-end being laid by the Anchor Line ship Investigator. On 23 June, the first message was sent from Bombay to Pender's house on Arlington Street, London, where he was holding a party attended by the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII. It was received using the siphon recorder of Sir William Thomson. Next day, the line opened to public traffic. What became the world's largest submarine telegraph station was founded at Porthcurno, initially with a staff of 16 young men. Often in early days, these young men were badly behaved and ill-disciplined. Further cables to Newfoundland, France, Spain, and Gibraltar were landed at Porthcurno, which became the gateway to the Empire. At the outbreak of World War II, the existing surface installations were thought to be far too vulnerable to attack, and in 1941, miners were employed to cut tunnels into the solid granite of the valley's hillside to house the telegraphy equipment. Porthcurno telegraphy facility closed in 1970, 100 years after it first began its operations. Modern cables are usually fibre optic and are much lighter in construction, international information is now made available of the locations of submarine cables.

Museum development The museum was started by former employees of Cable and Wireless based at the company's Holborn headquarters in London. It is now located in the previously excavated tunnels near Porthcurno beach, Cornwall. The layout of the museum display was carried out after receiving a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The museum has displays showing the history of submarine cable-laying ships and telegraphy, and a variety of samples of undersea telegraph cable designs used throughout its long history. The museum has a varied collection of still-working equipment designed for telegraphy. It remained a training college for the communications industry until 1993. An Exeter University project known as "Connecting Cornwall" was funded to promote a new exhibition; "The Nerve Centre of Empire". This was opened in the summer of 2010 by the Princess Royal. The exhibition was developed as an educational experience for children and young people, employing original design from local artist, Hennie Haworth. There are now around 16 people working at the museum, welcoming visitors from around the world and managing with a constant flow of research enquiries from academics, family historians, local historians and the media. The most recent chapter in the museum's development involves the sensitive re-development of the Grade II listed buildings to accommodate greater exhibitions space, and improved visitor facilities including a cafe and greater accessibility. The project, 'Developing for the Future', has been supported by Heritage Lottery Fund, the Arts Council England, Coastal Communities Fund, SubOptic, the Charles Hayward Foundation,. Department for Culture, Media and Sport/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund, ShareGift, the Edith Murphy Foundation, the Garfield Weston Foundation, The Headley Trust, Cornwall Council and the Trusthouse Charitable Foundation. Further funding was provided by the Clore Duffield Foundation for the development of a new, flexible educational centre; the Clore Learning Space. As a result of this extensive capital project, the museum closed to the public in September 2013 and reopened in summer 2014. In 2020, it was rebranded as PK Porthcurno: Museum of Global Communications. In March 2022, the museum was the subject of an episode of BBC Radio 4's series The Museums That Make Us, presented by Neil MacGregor.

Collection The museum's collection has designated status. It consists of a large photographic collection and the archives of Cable & Wireless plc, as well as models of cable ships, paintings, company staff magazines, cable samples (including the first transatlantic telephone cable TAT-1), and a range of telegraphic equipment.

Museum staff and volunteers The museum has around 16 professional staff, mostly full-time, and a large volunteer community. Many of the museum's technical volunteers trained or taught at the Porthcurno technical training college at some point in its history, prior to its eventual closure in 1993.

Awards The museum has won a number of awards since opening. These include:

Cultural Enterprises Awards 2020: Green Award Cornwall Tourism Awards 2018/19: Gold – Small Attraction of the Year South West England Tourism Excellence Awards 2018–2019: Highly Commended – Small Attraction of the Year Holyer an Gof Awards 2017: Winner in the Booklets Class, Changing Places: Porthcurno and the roots of modern communication, by Steve Bladon, Rosalyn Goulding and others South West England Awards 2014–2015: Silver – Small Visitor Attraction of the Year South West Tourism Excellence Awards 2012/13: Bronze – Small Visitor Attraction of the Year Cornwall Tourism Awards 2012: Gold – Small Visitor Attraction of the Year

Gallery

References

External links

Official website Telegraph Museum Porthcurno development project blog

Illustrations

PK Porthcurno: In the 19th century Porthcurno was connected to the rest of the world by submarine cables — In the 19th century Porthcurno was connected to the rest of the world by submarine cables

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with PK Porthcurno

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what PK Porthcurno claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to PK Porthcurno before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about PK Porthcurno ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of PK Porthcurno

In research: PK Porthcurno appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses PK Porthcurno in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: PK Porthcurno is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Industrial archaeological sites in Cornwall, Mass media in Cornwall, Museums in Cornwall, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for PK Porthcurno outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study PK Porthcurno in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what PK Porthcurno means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain PK Porthcurno out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is PK Porthcurno in simple terms?

Why does PK Porthcurno matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study PK Porthcurno?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on PK Porthcurno.