Re: The Daily Curmudgeon

[http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (Robert)]

 > From: Brian <http://www.cs..edu/~b>
 > Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2026 23:15:55 -0700
 >
 > I hated it.  The thing is, it made me feel like I was in a Science Museum,
 > instead of in the Exploratorium.  It was almost all things to look at,
 > rather than things to do.  (The "almost" is important; there are some
 > interactive things in it.)  My mental model of the Exploratorium is a heap
 > of wooden blocks piled on a table, rather than, for example, a huge sphere
 > hanging overhead with the surface of Mars projected onto it from inside,
 > surrounded by a bunch of panels (plastic, rounded corners) pointing out
 > features to examine.  Even in my favorite Exploratorium exhibit, a chaotic
 > pendulum with arms attached to each other via ball bearings all enclosed
 > in a vacuum, there isn't a motor to start it moving; you apply elbow
 > grease to a knob on the outside attached to the main axle, and you feel it
 > pushing back in jerks as the energy moves from one arm to another.

I always remember the car transmission exhibit at The Exploratorium where
you got to spin the "wheels" and see how they interacted with each other.
It was the most nonintuitive mechanism I have ever encountered, and
sometimes I will tell people about it.