Math Museums

  Up until yesterday, I didn't know there was such a thing as math museums.  I knew of art museums, car museums, train museums, historical museums, etc but never a math museum. 

One I found yesterday was the 3DXM Virtual Museum filled with all sorts of mathematical art.  It has material on minimal surfaces, famous surfaces, conformal maps, plane curves, fractals, space curves, polyhedral and math art.

Each topic has a variety of drawings for each type along with the mathematics involved.  The pictures tend to be in color and appear three dimensional.  It isn't until you get to the math art section that things really come together to show math in a different way. 

I checked out the work of several artists and their work is absolutely breathtaking.  The rose shaped parametric surface, the Kleinian double spiral, iso construction, and Tori reflections are spectacular and if shown out of context would be taken as straight artwork.

This site is the type of place students can go and just explore while having fun checking out the interactive elements.

Other places that are not so much museums in the traditional sense of the word but have interesting things to offer both students and teachers.

1. The Exploratorium in San Francisco offers activities that can be done with your students.  One suggestion is creating a math walk locally.  The site offers instructions for creating one locally for people who are not sure how to go about setting one up.

2. The Smithsonian has some nice mathematical opportunities available on line.  There is a virtual exhibit on Slates, Slide rules, and Software a history of mathematical teaching in America.  In addition, there are several videos on the math of prehistoric climate change, or the math involved in the fish population.  There are quite a few stories and articles all associated with math.  So many items to integrate into class.

3.  Finally is the National Museum of Mathematics in New York City does not have much in the way of online materials but it does have a page full of videos made by several different mathematicians.  If you want to see what topics are covered by checking out the map of the museum.

Have fun letting students explore some new places filled with mathematics.  Let me know what you think.  I'd love to hear.