I always liked Math a lot, in fact, better than Math liked me
I took an advanced Math ( mostly calculus) course at my high school where one of my classmates was Mary Claire King, who later went on to discover the gene which causes breast cancer
She was a lot better student than I was...and I did not know she was two years younger than me at the time either ( she didn't particularly look it)...she was a very serious, very quiet young woman who was what people would call "a natural" at math and science
Name dropping to one side, let me see what I can find out about the Museum
Here is the NY Times Review from December 2012, right before it opened
Museum Review
Opening the Doors to the Life of Pi
Museum of Mathematics at Madison Square Park
Joshua Bright for The New York Times
Museum of Mathematics “Harmony of the Spheres,” one of the exhibits, being tested before opening day.
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
Published: December 13, 2012
For those of us who have been intoxicated by the powers and
possibilities of mathematics, the mystery isn’t why that fascination
developed but why it isn’t universal. How can students not be entranced?
So profound are the effects of math for those who have felt them, that
you never really become a former mathematician (or ex-mathematics
student) but one who has “lapsed,” as if it were an apostasy.
A sortable calendar of noteworthy cultural events in the New York region, selected by Times critics.
Joshua Bright for The New York Times
The “String Product,” an interactive calculator based
on a paraboloid, fills the staircase at the new Museum of Mathematics
in Manhattan.
So why, until now, has there apparently been no major museum of
mathematics in the United States? Why, when so many identities and
advocacies have representation in the museological pantheon, has math
been so neglected? Here and there, perhaps, a hobbyist has displayed
puzzles, and our gargantuan science centers occasionally deem it worth
their while to descend into algebraic abstraction. But a museum devoted
to math? You have to immerse yourself in the history of science museums
in Europe — where math sits at the foundation of things — to get an
inkling of what it might mean.
Or, for an entirely different experience, you can go to Madison Square Park in Manhattan to see the new Museum of Mathematics, which opens on Saturday. It refers to itself as MoMath (and since it is near MoSex — the Museum of Sex — that means we now have a museum district explicitly evoking the mind-body problem).
MoMath is not what you might expect. At first you might not even guess
its subject. There are a few giveaways, particularly if you recognize
the symbol for pi on the door or discover the pentagonal sinks in the
bathrooms. But what is that cylinder constructed of plastic tubes
stretching toward the ceiling with a seat inside (“Hyper Hyperboloid”)?
Or that transparent wagon that slips along multicolored acorns in a
trough (“Coaster Rollers”)? Or a tricycle with three square wheels, each
of a different size, rolling along a bumpy circular track
(“Square-Wheeled Trike”)?
And what is that screen on which you paint electronic designs with a
brush (“Polypaint”)? The two adjustable sloping paths on which you race
objects (“Tracks of Galileo”)? The pixelated illuminated floor that
responds to your movements (“Math Square”)?
This is not a museum, you might think, it is a high-tech playground,
some 19,000 square feet with 30 attractions on two floors. I stand in
front of a screen, and I see myself as a tree sprouting branches of
mini-me’s (“Human Tree”). I cover a wall with interlocking monkeys
(“Tesselation Station”). I dip a paint roller into water and map
footprints on a blackboard (“Water Frieze”). Child’s play or something
else?
And that is part of the point. The museum’s founder is Glen Whitney,
who parlayed his training as a mathematical logician into a lucrative
position as quantitative analyst for a hedge fund; he then decided to
create a museum that would celebrate math. His collaborator was Cindy
Lawrence, an accountant and educator who is associate director. And the
design chief is Tim Nissen, who worked for Ralph Appelbaum Associates
and developed the original exhibits. The museum cost $15 million; $22
million was raised.
The goal, each principal emphasized in conversations this week, was to
show that math was fun, engaging, exciting. MoMath is a proselytizing
museum. And despite its flaws, it is exhilarating to see math so
exuberantly celebrated. And while fourth through eighth are said to be
the intended grade levels, it is hard to imagine a younger child or
mature adult not drawn in by some exhibits here. In many ways the
sensations of the displays are more compelling than the explanations of
their content.
That is also one of the flaws. The reason that there haven’t been many
math museums is that the enthusiasm the subject inspires is not easily
communicated and not readily discovered. In the United States, where
student math performance is far from stellar, it is easy to see why a
compensatory straining at “fun” is more evident than a drive toward
illumination.
To attract the uninitiated, a display must be sensuous, readily grasped
and memorable. Yet the concepts invoked are often abstract, requiring
reflection and explanation. How are these opposing needs to be
reconciled? With widely varying results. When I visited the museum twice
this week not every display was completed, but the exhibits covered a
broad spectrum of achievement. Many on the higher end of that range
should be celebrated; much on the lower should be scrutinized and
brought up to grade level.
So first, celebrate: in many of these exhibits the physical sensation of
being immersed in a world shaped by a mathematical idea will have
lasting resonance. If you sit on a chair at the center of “Hyper
Hyperboloid,” for example, you are surrounded by colored cables arranged
in two surrounding circles. As you rotate the chair, they begin to
angle in opposing directions, until the column of cables is pulled
together in the center above your head. You are literally on the central
axis of a graceful and surprising shape, its surfaces and contours
outlined by series of stretched lines.
Or ride that square-wheeled trike or the “coaster” rolling on acorns. In
each case your instincts tell you to expect jerky disruptions, since
only circles or spheres can be counted on to maintain smoothness in
motion. But the acorns are shaped to have constant width, just as spheres do, so there is no sense of rise and fall as the wagon slides.
And the “trike’s” square wheels rotate just fine on a surface designed
to accommodate them. The surprising thing is that this surface is a
curve called a catenary, which is also the shape of a drooping chain. It
allows the axis of the odd wheels to remain level as the contraption
rolls along. (You can even give the wheels other improbable shapes.)
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