Ask HN: Mathematics-related Museums?

17 points by questionr 8 years ago | 7 comments
Any interesting museums, exhibits, tours or destinations for mathematicians?

National Museum of Mathematics @ NYC http://momath.org/

Greece

  • wnkrshm 8 years ago
    The Heinz NixDorf museum in Paderborn, Germany. It's mostly computer science and engineering but it has a numerical background

    The collection is amazing, from prehistoric cuneiform tablets over Renaissance mechanical computers, Enigma, vacuum tube compuers to modern machines - it is arranged in chronological order. Some of the items have replicas that you can actually touch and operate (e.g. brass multiplication machines from the 18th century).

    • justjonathan 8 years ago
      The Boston Museum of science has a A terrific children's exhibit on math as well as nice more adult oriented math exhibit (sponsored by Mathematica as I recall).
      • jhbadger 8 years ago
        No, no -- "Mathematica: A World of Numbers ... and Beyond" has nothing to do with "Mathematica" the software -- the name coincidence is just because both use the Latin word for "Mathematics".

        It is a version of the IBM-funded 1961 exhibition that has been shown in various museums such as the California and Chicago museums of science and industry. Its main claim to fame is that it was designed by Charles and Ray Eames (yes, of "Mad Men" era recliner fame, but more relevantly they also did the famous "Powers of Ten" film). It is a somewhat dated exhibit (I doubt a section on famous mathematicians would be titled "Men of Mathematics" today), but still has some interesting pieces, and the Eames influence means it is practically a piece of art in itself.

      • leephillips 8 years ago
        The National Cryptologic Museum has something to do with mathematics.

        https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic-heritage/museum/

        • actuallyalys 8 years ago
          Gießen, Germany has the Mathematikum (http://www.mathematikum.de/en.html). Its exhibits are probably aimed more at children, but I still enjoyed it.
          • brighthero 8 years ago
            I was just about to post exactly that for fun. How small the world is...
          • oso2k 8 years ago
            There's also the National Curvebank at CSULA [0].

            [0] http://curvebank.calstatela.edu/home/home.htm