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Hello, All:

The New York Times printed a thought provoking review of the 
exhibitions in our new wing, which was received with mixed feelings by 
the Hall's staff.  As Mr. Rothstein addressed some points that have 
been discussed on ISEN and at ASTC conferences, and only rarely 
discussed in the general media, I thought it might be interesting to 
post it here and solicit your responses.

  While I'm at it, I should mention that the new wing is open to the 
public as of this past weekend.  The exhibitions are up and running, 
the Discovery Labs and demo areas are programmed,  and the visitors are 
doing what they do.

If you are in the area, please come by!

Eric Siegel
Director, Planning &
     Program Development
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th Street
Queens, NY 11368
[log in to unmask]
www.nyscience.org

=========================================================



November 24, 2004
MUSEUM REVIEW

 From Internet Arm Wrestling to the Magic of Math
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN


Forget for a moment that a new wing of the New York Hall of Science in 
Queens is opening today. Or that within its 55,000 square feet of 
exhibition space, illuminated by daylight filtered through translucent 
fiberglass-clad walls, it is possible to arm wrestle someone in 
Anchorage, Alaska, using the Internet. Or to watch a golden orb spider 
weave its web. Or to sample the scent of a meteorite. Or even to find 
an indoor supervised play area that looks like a preschool in a park.

  These attractions have their appeal, of course. And the $89 million 
expansion of the science center, which includes the new wing (designed 
by Polshek Partnership Architects), as well as the refurbishment of the 
museum's outdoor rocket park from its 1960's World's Fair days, is 
bound to increase the hall's annual attendance of 275,000.

  But I was more strongly lured into the older, darker part of the 
museum, where participatory exhibits about optical illusions overlook 
the main floor, with its kiosks about microbes and molecules. There, 
seeming a bit cramped, is the debut of another exhibition, recently 
bought from the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

  In the science museum world, where education is typically wedded to 
the latest in high-tech participatory effects, this exhibition bears 
the unusual distinction of being more than 40 years old and proud of 
it. Some paper labels are starting to discolor; some facts are out of 
date; some references have the patina of another era. Indeed, the 
exhibition probably violates almost every precept of contemporary 
museum design, with display cases meant to be closely read and 
push-buttons that perform only perfunctory duty.

  But it is also one of the most famous science exhibitions ever, 
dealing with one of the most recalcitrant subjects: mathematics. Called 
"Mathematica," it was created for I.B.M. in 1961 by the design team of 
Charles and Ray Eames, who also designed the I.B.M. Pavilion at the 
1964 World's Fair. Since the fair gave birth to the Hall of Science, in 
Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, the museum might even be considered a 
distant relative of "Mathematica." The show is also the ancestor of 
many contemporary science exhibitions, predating the participatory 
displays that were pioneered by the Exploratorium in San Francisco and 
are now the dominant science museum style.

  I can also testify to the influence of "Mathematica" because I saw it 
as a child. I still recall wired structures rising out of soapy liquid, 
their swirling surfaces demonstrating solutions of mathematical 
problems; the cubic array of bulbs that translated simple 
multiplication into three-dimensional patterns of light; the suspended 
Moebius strip - a surface with only one side and one edge - on which a 
train continuously ran. Now, decades later, that early thrill is gone, 
but the exhibition accomplished just what an exhibition is meant to, 
inspiring wonder and persistent curiosity. Its longevity in science 
museums in Boston, Atlanta, Chicago and California proves that I was 
not alone.

So what relationship does "Mathematica" have to the more contemporary 
currents of museum life in the new hall? Despite common origins, they 
seem to emerge from different universes. "Mathematica" samples varied 
branches of mathematics, not blanching from explaining functions or 
projective geometry; contemporary exhibitions set their sights lower, 
restricting each display's focus. "Mathematica" knows you won't fully 
understand it all, but the contemporary museum exhibition wants you to 
- or at least the portion presented.

  And "Mathematica" deals in conceptual play, while contemporary 
exhibitions encourage literal play. "Mathematica" includes, for 
example, a display case about the 19th-century genius Sir Francis 
Galton, citing his polymathic abilities, his pioneering use of 
fingerprints for identification and his eccentric interests (which 
included writing a paper about "gregariousness in cattle"). 
Contemporary displays are more concerned that you grasp a single 
concept. They are play stations in a science lesson.

  That is also how they are used by the Hall of Science, which trains 
teachers while also employing "explainers": high school and college 
students, eager to help curious viewers. There are now 150 explainers 
on staff, some working 15 hours a week. As the hall's director, Alan J. 
Friedman, pointed out while giving a visitor a tour, the educational 
experience is paramount.

  But experience and education mix in varying proportions. One new 
exhibition, "The Sports Challenge," for example, puts much more 
emphasis on experience. Discussions of friction, rotation and laws of 
motion are almost incidental as visitors balance on a mechanical surf 
board or measure their pitching speed in a batting cage. Physical 
experience becomes a source of physics, just as it does in the museum's 
imaginative outdoor playground.

  Another new exhibition, "The Search for Life Beyond Earth," puts more 
emphasis on education, demonstrating water's importance to life. The 
lessons are simple and clear. But the experiences offered vary greatly, 
from the clever (a scale on which your weight is represented by a giant 
tube that fills with the number of gallons of water your body would 
typically include) to the pointless (a maneuverable mini-Hubble 
"telescope" that focuses on a backdrop of the heavens, sending 
mini-images of mini-photographs of galaxies to a mini-LCD screen).

But the most ambitious new exhibition, "Connections: The Nature of 
Networks," deals with a subject that should be part of a contemporary 
"Mathematica." "Connections" tries to demonstrate how complex phenomena 
grow out of simple rules, how networks work, and how they affect 
everything from social interaction to electric grids.

  It is an enterprising if flawed exhibition, whose highlights offer 
some hope that it will gradually evolve. The arm-wrestling kiosk, for 
example, adds some amazement to a phenomenon - the Internet - that is 
now becoming commonplace. Grasp a metallic arm, and a video screen 
shows your opponent, who can be sitting just behind you or in a 
comparably equipped science center across the country. The force you 
impose on the arm is transmitted via the Internet and translated into a 
force wielded by the mechanical arm on the other end. More refined 
versions of such interactions are beginning to be used in medicine; 
here, the possibilities become palpable.

  And what would a show about networks be without an anthill or a spider 
web? A video camera focuses on leaf-cutter ants molding their home, 
each ignorant of the larger task, while nearby, live spiders weave 
their webs in an open display.

  But how much understanding is inspired by these images? What Mr. 
Friedman said about the problems that needed to be solved to make 
Internet arm wrestling work - problems with network delays, signal 
interruptions and smoothing of anomalies - could have been illustrated 
in the exhibition itself and would have made the nature of the Internet 
much more apparent. Moreover, despite the exhibition's assertions, 
spider webs with their "precisely engineered structures" do not provide 
convincing analogies for the Internet, where resilience derives from 
redundancy, from continuingly varying paths, from constantly shifting 
nodes.

  There is also too little textual explanation. A display showing 
seashells is called "Where Math Meets Nature." But there is no 
explanation of how a nautilus shell develops out of simple mathematical 
rules - something actually illustrated in "Mathematica." A computer 
simulation might have helped. Yet when a computer simulation is offered 
- of the mathematician John Conway's "Game of Life," with its grid 
mutating according to programmed rules - the game isn't taught clearly 
enough. Meanwhile, a display showing how musical elements combine and 
influence one another in a network of interrelations is so bewildering 
that the point is lost.

  Mr. Friedman emphasized that the new exhibitions, designed by staff 
members, are only beginning their evolutionary life. Children will be 
interviewed; explainers will be at work; texts and demonstrations will 
change. "There is another year of work to do before the exhibition will 
be done," he said.

Right now, though, "Connections" demonstrates two opposing risks: that 
of condescension and that of opacity. It is both too simple, given the 
complexity of the subject, and too complex, given the simplicity of its 
points. A scientist might be bored by it; a child might find little to 
provoke further inquiry.

  "Mathematica," despite its own flaws, avoided both of those dangers. 
Over the course of decades, it has lured both professionals and 
children. It still exudes confidence. It invites attention not by 
promising participatory sensation but by offering beauty and elegance. 
It spurs curiosity not by aiming for simplicity but by offering hints 
of complexity.

So a visit to the welcome new wing should also include a detour. For 
while the hands-on style of the Exploratorium is everywhere triumphant, 
and often justly so, there is also room for something more daring and 
perhaps more involving, something that "Mathematica" represents. It 
might be called an Explanatorium.

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