New York welcomes North America鈥檚 first ever mathematics museum
Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) Opens 15 December in New York
MATHEMATICS is awesome, full stop. That鈥檚 the philosophy behind a new museum opening next week in New York City.
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The founders of the Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) know they have a fight on their hands, given the pervasive idea that the subject is boring, hard and scary. But they are determined to give mathematics a makeover, with exhibits that express an unselfconscious, giddy joy in exploring the world of numbers and forms.
鈥淲e want to show a different side of mathematics,鈥� says museum co-founder Cindy Lawrence. 鈥淥ur goal is to get kids excited, and show them the math they鈥檙e doing in school is just one tree in a whole huge forest.鈥�
To this end, mathematics pervades every aspect of the design, sometimes in surprising places. Take the museum鈥檚 Enigma Caf茅. At first glance, it looks like any other trendy, modern Manhattan cafe. But instead of coffee, puzzles will be served. And a careful look reveals that the floor is a 6-by-6 grid, the walls are made of Tetris-like puzzle shapes called , and the tables are arranged as a knight would progress across a chessboard.
鈥淲e try to hide math everywhere,鈥� says Lawrence.
The inspiration for MoMath came shortly after a beloved but dated museum on Long Island closed down in 2006. MoMath co-founder Glen Whitney, a former hedge fund analyst specialising in algorithms, got a group together to fill the void, but for months all they did was talk 鈥� until they were offered a booth at the 2009 in New York.
鈥淭here was a bit of a debate amongst the group about whether we should accept that offer because, in fact, we didn鈥檛 really have anything to put in a booth,鈥� Lawrence says.
But accept it they did, and the deluge of ideas they had for the booth overflowed into a travelling exhibit called the Math Midway. The Midway in its turn laid the groundwork for the full-scale museum, scheduled to open on 15 December in Madison Square Park.
MoMath exhibits take abstract concepts like number theory and topology and let you put your hands and even feet all over them. Take Coaster Rollers: the exhibit is a cart sitting atop a tray full of rubber shapes that look like other-worldly acorns.
These forms are all 鈥渟urfaces of constant width鈥� 鈥� a shape whose highest point is always the same height above a table, no matter which way you turn it. Spheres are the most famous example, but it turns out there are an infinite variety of shapes with the same property. My cart flies over the alien acorns as smoothly as if it were running on ball bearings. I鈥檝e learned something new about topology, but more than that, I climb off the cart grinning and full of adrenalin. The idea is cemented: mathematics is kinetic. It鈥檚 active.
鈥淚 climb off the cart grinning. The idea is cemented: mathematics is kinetic. It鈥檚 active鈥�
It is also creative. The museum has a design studio called the Mathenaeum that lets visitors design geometric figures that may have never been dreamed of before. Designs created one day will be 3D printed the next, and put on display the day after that.
The space is often beautiful. The museum鈥檚 main staircase spirals around a two-storey paraboloid 鈥� a parabola that has been spun around a central pole to make a 3D sculpture. The shape is laced with ropes of lights that run between points on the paraboloid where the radius is a whole number. The design, shot through with mathematics, is mesmerising.
Each exhibit has been designed to feel like a different place with a different style: a Renaissance pavilion, a Gothic cathedral, a military site, a cafe. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e places you can occupy,鈥� says chief of design Tim Nissen. 鈥淭he idea is that math is actually out there in the world, and we brought it in here,鈥� he says, not that mathematics is something you can only find in a museum.
The MoMath team has big hopes for a broader impact. It鈥檚 widely acknowledged that children in the US are falling behind in the subject. A member of the US National Security Agency, which employs more mathematicians than any other organisation in the country but only hires US citizens, once told Lawrence that in his view, the biggest threat to national security is the lack of US-born mathematicians. But politicians and teachers rarely agree on the best way to address the shortage.
Lawrence has no doubts: the problem is in rote learning in school. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like teaching kids to read music, and never even telling them that instruments exist,鈥� she says. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 fix that by more testing. You do it with a cultural institution that can change the norms and perceptions about math 鈥� we want to be that place.鈥�