Seattle

Over the weekend I headed up to Seattle. I got to see Sharon, Julie, Ben, and Justin. It was good to see all of them.

It was my first time up to Seattle so I saw some of the touristy stuff like Pike's Market, the first starbucks, The Lenin Statue, The Troll Under the Bridge, the science center, the experience music project, and The Science Fiction Museum. If you pick one link to follow, I recommend The Troll Under the Bridge.

Something struck me while I was at the science center - all science museums are aimed at kids. Clearly I don't think that only kids can get something out of them since I just went to one, but the focus is clearly on kids. I think it is great to have science museums focused at kids - educating kids and getting them to enjoy science is clearly really important. But why aren't there any science museums aimed at adults? While kids can go to art museums and history museums those seem to target adults. I don't think that there is a fundamental distinction that art is aimed at adults and science is aimed at kids, especially since it seems like almost all kids spend time on art (well mostly crappy art, but still art related), but I feel pretty confident that there are more adults with science related professions and interests than art related.

Science museums are largely focused on education and creating excitement for the subject, but art museums seem to have similar goals of educating and creating appreciation so that does not seem like the distinction.

I'm not sure exactly what a science museum for adults would look like. I think that the MIT museum is the closest thing I have seen to what I am talking about. Of course, most of the MIT museum, especially the parts I think adults find interesting, are either history of science or art that involves science (such as the holograms and the kinetic art). So in some ways the MIT museum is more a history and art museum with history and art revolving around science and technology. Clearly a technology museum faces a lot of issues with staying current, but there is a lot of fundamental science out there that doesn't change much that could be in a science museum for adults.