MIT Museum — Attraction in Cambridge

It was all pretty obvious stuff if you’re even casually into science. I think they have taken the “community outreach” so far as to really dumb down a lot of the content. There wasn’t anything there that I couldn’t just read in the Guardian and there wasn’t much in the way of physical experiences that enhanced the information.

The bookstore/shop had some cool stuff, but still fairly mainstream — not even quite as cool as The Discovery Store used to be back in the 90s.

It’s a little frustrating to go to a museum & find yourself interacting with screens a lot. That said, the best exhibit was the climate change projection graphs; the documentation on how to use it wasn’t stellar but it eventually became clear and - while this fully could just as easily be accessed via the web - having it in a museum space lends itself to a sort if captive audience. If anyone is paying attention to that content, to those projections, it’s powerful. But that said, it is still just a screen, which isn’t very attention grabbing in itself.

I also enjoyed the solar sail mockup. That space origami was very cool to see in real life after reading about it in Cixin Liu’s 3 Body Problem & some documentaries.

The interactive art wall was a cool idea. The timing on it wasn’t perfect, but I like the concept.

My friend & I found it politically slanted. Slanted in my direction but it still annoyed me because there were moments lacking in objectivity, sort of with a soft liberal arts slant that just isn’t what I expect of detached scientific objectivity of a tech museum/school. Obviously, one side of the political spectrum favors science more, in aggregate - lol - so I guess they are reaching out to their target audience? But if they were a little less heavy handed with nonobjective prosthelytizing, it might get more people from both sides invested in hearing the science. MIT should be a bastion of objectivity, and I found this hard political line unprofessional & offputting, even when I didn’t disagree with the content. It’s just kind of a slobby modern handling of data made to sensationalize it & emotionalize it, as though that’s the only way to get people invested. Feels like a cheap gimmick that degrades the detachment of science as a higher power beyond human trifles & the pettiness of competing philosophies. That didn’t irritate me terribly, but it made the experience less enjoyable for my spazzy conservative friend. 🤣 And I couldn’t really even disagree for once.

Anyway, those are the multiple reasons I don’t recommend the museum as a whole unless you just have money &...

The MIT Museum, founded in 1971 is located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyin Cambridge, Massachusetts. It hosts collections of holography, technology-related artworks, artificial intelligence, robotics, maritime history, and the history of MIT. Its holography collection of 1800 pieces is the largest in the world, though not all of it is exhibited. As of 2014, works of high-speed photographer Harold Edgerton and kinetic artist Arthur Ganson are the two largest long-running displays. There is a regular program of temporary special exhibitions, often on the intersections of art and technology In addition to serving the MIT community, the museum offers numerous outreach programs to school-age children and adults in the public at large. The widely attended annual Cambridge Science Festival was originated by and continues to be coordinated by the museum.

The museum was founded in 1971 by Warren Seamans, and was initially called the "MIT Historical Collections". Its purpose was to collect and preserve historical artifacts and documents scattered throughout MIT. It was renamed the "MIT Museum" in 1980, and began developing exhibits and educational programs for the MIT community as well as society at large.

Since 2005 the official mission of the MIT Museum has been, "to engage the wider community with MIT’s science, technology and other areas of scholarship in ways that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century."

The museum is directed by MIT Professor John Durant, and operates under MIT's Associate Provost for the Arts, who also oversees the List Visual Arts Center and the MIT Office of the Arts.

The museum was accredited by the organization now called the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) in 1984, and reaccredited in 2002 and 2013. The MIT Museum also belongs to the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), Museum Computer Network, New England Museum Association, International Confederation of Architectural Museums, and the International Council of...

Stunning, hopeful, and very important museum. It looks at exciting potential solutions to grand problems, the nuances and cautions that may be important, and presents them in an accessible way.

There is, however, one exception to this, which is the exhibit “The Planet After Geoengineering”

There is no balance to be found. There are no other science or engineering exhibits on the topic, simply an art piece that speaks in “emotional truths”, and tries to instill dislike of this technology by invoking human biases (like suggesting that the intervention was once “proposed by the father of the hydrogen bomb”).

Quotes like: “The terror of geoengineering is to be forced to live intimately with the death of the atmosphere, contemplating suffocation as a real possibility.” do not fit the spirit of anything else in the museum.

(What does the “death of the atmosphere” even mean…?)

It contains misleading claims like “[precipitation] is a zero sum game”, and presents futures that are scientifically implausible.

The issues with the exhibit seem hard to rectify with signage, so it may be wise to pull it until a comprehensive exhibit on the topic exists. It does have some artistic value, and highlights important interventions like indigenous fire management practices.

All this said, I do highly recommend anyone excited by science and technology to visit, and I hope they find a way to bring more of the normal MIT rigor and spirit...