Math may suffer from a reputation for difficulty, but the new Museum of Mathematics, scheduled to open in 2012 in Manhattan, is trying to change that attitude by bringing excitement and wonder to the forefront. Glen Whitney, the nonprofit museum's founder, hopes to bring out the lighter side of math with fun experiments for children and streamlined history for adults.
The idea for the new museum came after the Goudreau Museum of Mathematics in Art closed its doors in 2006. Whitney felt that the museum landscape felt sparse without an homage to math. He quit his job as an algorithms specialist and manager at Renaissance Technologies LLC and started the nonprofit. Backed by Google Inc. (GOOG), the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and a charity founded by Renaissance Technologies LLC head Jim Simons, MoMath will cater to a wide audience in order to spread the gospel of mathematics.
"I started this museum because I wanted people to have a chance to see the beauty, excitement and wonder of mathematics," Whitney told Bloomberg. Though Whitney says that the museum will be targeting children in grades 4-8, he hopes that the appeal will slowly trickle into a broader audience.
"We need an institution like a Museum of Mathematics so people are aware of it and better serve their roles in society, whether it's understanding a budget or even just the lottery," Whitney said to Bloomberg. Leading up to the opening of the museum in 2012, Whitney has kept busy by creating the Math Midway travelling exhibition, the Math Encounters presentation series and, perhaps most interestingly, guiding math tours across the United States.
On a tour through New York City with The New Yorker, Whitney explained the world through the eyes of the math enthusiast, covering the most systematically efficient ways to travel the city — "If you like to understand a system and maximize it, you take Third. I'm a system guy." — and breaking down the national debt for the layperson— "...O.K., so let's suppose the national debt is a basketball. Your annual salary would be unseen by the most powerful microscope in the world."
By creating buzz, Whitney hopes that MoMath will grow in scope beyond what the Goudreau Museum could accomplish. "It had stayed the same size, it was only open by appointment for 20 years. So I wanted to create an institution that could address the broader cultural problems with mathematics," he said.