New York's Museum of Mathematics Hopefully to Open by 2012

March 4, 2011

With $22 million in funding, Glen Whitney is on the lookout for a facility in Manhattan that will become the Museum of Mathematics. His interactive museum will, in theory, make mathematics jump out of textbooks into real life.

In fact, Whitney hopes to raise $30 million—enough to expand the showplace to a second floor—because, he said, "We have several ideas for exhibits with a great deal of vertical height."

After Whitney finds the proper venue, he anticipates a museum opening by 2012. He already has one big exhibit in mind: an aquarium of mathematical surfaces.

"There's a column of water, and you can inject bubbles at just the right time into this column so they will rise at a constant rate," Whitney explained. "If you inject at the right sequence, it creates a surface of bubbles, an interesting 3-D surface. It's like a bubble fountain of mathematical surfaces."

Read the full article at Fast Company

Source:  Fast Company (February 28, 2011)