Museum of Science by Tim and Juliette

April the 8th 2015

Museum of Science in Cambridge and farewell party- by Juliette and Tim

Today, the last day before the day we were leaving, we went to the Museum of Science, which is located in Cambridge, near the city of Boston. To get there, we took the train from BLS for quite a long ride. After we finally got there, we first walked into a wide hall, where we had to wait for a while.

When we finally got into the museum, the group of students split into a few groups, for we were free to visit the wings we wanted without any guide or restriction. The museum was divided on three levels.

With a few friends, we went down the stairs and we discovered a first section, called 'The Blue Wing'.

In the museum, we had the opportunity to try a lot of different things and machines out, about many different things, all related to science of course, like e.g. sounds and their frequencies, insects, the human body, optical illusions and much more.

The area where we probably spent the most time was the 'playground', which was like a small park with children games where we could experiment about physical strength or phenomenes, such as the moving of heavy bulks or the rotation of corps. Some students did have a lot of fun with the children attractions too: 

The part I preferred was when we talked to a scientist, a British physician, who showed and taught about electrical circuits and how they work, and we learned stuff about those we didn't know before... The 51 years old physician, called Steve Adams, was very enthusiastic and sympathetic and we really enjoyed talking with him. We asked him a few questions and here is what he answered:

Hi Steve Adams, so where and what did you study?

I studied physics at the University of Cambridge in England. I did a first degree and afterwards, I also did a master's degree. In all, I studied about seven years.

Why did you came to New England to work?

My wife is from here. We lived a long time in England where I used to work before we moved over here. Since I'm here, this is the job I do, teaching students about science, and also working a lot on the museum's background and creating the tools you can see in here.

Do you like the job you're doing?

Oh I love it, it's the most fun I ever had in my life. I also love the subject, I love physics and teaching other people about it. I think it is really interesting and fun to show and explain to people some stuff that may seem and sound really complicated and scary but in simpler and funnier ways. Science shouldn't be seen as something scary, it should be fun and interesting, that's why I love what I do.

(You should tell this to our science teachers...)

Did you make any discoveries in the domains you are studying?

If you're doing a PhD in physics, you have to study innovative things, something that nobody else is doing, so I studied about what happens when you fire lasers at pieces of material, and since this was a domain no one had really studied before, I learned quite a lot of stuff, but these weren't any dramatic discoveries or something. So in a certain way, yes, I made some minor discoveries in physics.

To study physics, is studying mathematics really recquired? How do those two subjects relate to each other?

To do it professionally, maths is something you have to be comfortable with; if you want to work in science, as an engineer for example, you have to go through the maths department. For some reason, the language of the universe is maths, so if you want to understand how the universe is working, which is the purpose of physics, you'll have to understand mathematics.

Do you think mankind discovered mathematics, or did mankind invent mathematics?

This is a really interesting question, which I cannot answer clearly and I can't be sure to be right. I do think that humans discovered mathematics rather than inventend it. I mean, have you been to the Maya exhibit here? It's a lot of fun and really interesting, you should go and take a look; the Maya invented a really sophisticated numbers system, and in the exhibit, there are cool activities about these numbers that make you think about the relation between the invention and the discovery of numbers. The primitive cultures had pretty easy numbers systems, because they only had to count small amounts of things, so did they develop more sophisticated systems because they needed to count higher amounts of things, or did they do it by accident and realised that they could actually count more things? That's a really good question: what does having sophisticated mathematics have to do with your view of the world? They must have a profound Impact. So I don't know the answer to your question, it's a fascinating question, I'm not sure there's a good answer. But mathematics are in the physical universe, but at the same time, we might be inventing a sort of 'dialect' to understand maths and physics.

Yes, I guess you must be right. Did you also study chemistry?

I only studied chemistry formally at high school and during my first year in college. But the division between physics and chemistry is pretty artificial, they are like nested together.

Thank you for all your answers, it was a pleasure to talk to you.

[image 8]

Afterwards, we were supposed to visit the Maya exhibit but we had a little problem so we couldn't and we moved on to the movie about the discovery of the Maya civilisation in the theater, where the screen covered the whole wall and was curved for better vision:

The picture is blurred but the screen was huge and we were immersed in amazing landscapes.

Overall, we spent great time in the museum and learned a lot of things.