Boston and New England: Thursday: M.I.T. and Vicinity

I split Thursday between working and exploring MIT, which, although I'd visited a few times previously, had never done properly. I walked this route from the T to work to around MIT campus to work to dinner to the T. Although I documented the whole day's narrative in pictures and notes, I figure I should add a few high-level observations here.

I spent some of the day at the M.I.T. Museum. It had a number of exhibits with varying degrees of coolness:

  • advances in the biological sciences.
  • cool robots.
  • holography. Very cool. I couldn't photograph anything in this exhibit. Some holograms change as one moves one's head. For instance, in one portrait, a man scratches his nose. The effect reminded me of the magical photographs in Harry Potter.
  • kinetic sculptures by Arthur Ganson. This exhibit was awesome; I must've spent most of my time in the museum here.
  • strobe photography. Has some neat facts.
  • history of MIT education.
  • stackable, lightweight small urban cars.
  • sandscape. This small exhibit was simply a box of sand. One could push the sand around and the light projected onto the sand would change to make what appeared to be a topological map. Neat! I'm not sure how it worked. Like some other exhibits, it was not feasible to photograph.
  • hybrid illusions. These holograms looked like different people depending on the distance one stood from them. Obviously, they're impossible to photograph.

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