Oh When the Nerds Go Marching In

I and three families from my school got up by the dawn's early light and blundered to the metro station so we could beat the crowds surging toward our goal- the Paris museum of science and industry.

It was free this weekend, and we took good advantage of it! We had a number of children along (10, if I remember correctly) so the first thing we visited was the kid section. It was cool! They had a section about the television industry where kids could run cameras, give the forcast, or star in a music video.

The next area was about bugs and insects. They had a butterfly garden and an ant colony. Then we learned about the human body. When you placed your hands on two electrodes, a bass drum kept the rhythm of your heartbeat. There was even a little track for measuring how fast you could run.

Next came a section about water. There were lots of water games like balancing balls on jets of water or using water to push balls through a course. You could try 4 different pumps to see which one worked best for moving the water into a big bucket. There was a water clock that I and the dads studied for a long time without ever really figuring it out. It was like a toilet but ten times more complicated. The pendulum pumped a small amount of liquid into a reservoir each second. When that reached a certain height the water siphoned into another reservoir, which after one minute emptied into the reservoir that counted minutes. At the end of the hour all of the minutes drained back down into the flask below the pendulum and the next hour ball became filled. You can see that it was 10:54 when I took the picture.

There was a whole section on energy and another on robotics in manufacturing. It was kind of like a simplified mini-version of the whole rest of the museum. After that we visited the planetarium. The highlight  for me was flying through a 3D-rendered version of the Hubble deep field. Later in the day we saw a 3D film about the Sun that was also very interesting. For me it was not much new information, but it was fun to see it in 3D. Flying through a solar flare? Why not!

We also visited the Argonaut, a retired French submarine. Talk about claustrophobic! I can't imagine having to live there for any length of time. The one toilet for the crew was smaller than an airplane toilet and to get to it half the crew had to squeeze through a passage that could reach 175 degrees when they were at the surface. The bunks were crammed together and the guys used them in shifts. You had to hope you didn't get stuck with one of the bunks were you were hugging a torpedo.

We also visited an exhibit about the intersection of science and fiction. It was like a Star Wars party mixed with a Star Trek Party mixed with much stranger stuff, mixed with a healthy splattering of Jules Verne, mixed with a little bit of reality. In addition to the obligatory R2D2 and C3PO, there were models from I, Robot and costumes from Planet of the Apes and tons of movies I had never heard of. You get 3 nerd points if you can name the Star Wars character in the picture. There were two real robots also, one of which spoke several languages. There was also a film on four different screens that gave an immersive overview of the possibilities and dilemmas of time travel.

At the end of the day we visited a light and shadows exhibit for kids. There were lots of games and experiments using light.
 

Well, I hadn't seen enough, so I went back the next day also! The first thing I did was stand in line for more than an hour so I could do what you see in the picture. They strapped me in under the balloon and off I went, using the big wings to maneuver above the crowds. It was kind of like swimming but more clumsy. I think with practice it would be a lot easier. It was really neat! I lifted off from the second floor balcony and floated up until I was above the level of the third floor and looking down at the first floor lobby.

From there I visited a very interesting section about rockets and satellites. I used satellite data to predict the flow of icebergs below South America and decide if the palace in Venice is going to sink into the ocean any time soon. Then I spent several minutes trying to dock a spacecraft to the International Space Station. I tried to hurry for the sake of the people watching, with the predictable result. I ended up above the station (higher orbit due to higher relative velocity) and had to use my jets to reposition, then rotate, then reposition again, then rotate some more... and then I got my controls mixed up and I nearly blasted a hole in the space station. At that point I decided to continue my adventures elsewhere. There was a collection of films you could choose from so I watched short documentaries about Yuri Gagarin and MIR, a publicity piece about the French Diamond project, and footage of the Challenger explosion.

I saw an expo about new technologies showing a car that was more like a big scooter than a small car (it made a Smart look beefy) and an SUV that Nissan hopes to release by 2015 that runs on hydrogen.
After that I visited an expo about counterfeiting. It was very sobering. They had several examples of counterfeit items right next to the real one and it was hard to spot the differences. I was amazed at the types of items copied. I knew about counterfeit money, but I didn't realize that name-brand merchandise is also highly susceptible. They had a ton of Nike shoes that were fake.  For the most part you couldn't tell by looking at them. The counterfeits were using cheaper rubber and cheaper materials, but you wouldn't be able to tell until they were worn out 2 months after you bought them or you started to develop back problems.

Other counterfeited objects included an iron, an ink cartridge, brand name kids toys, A Microsoft Windows 2007 CD and packaging complete with holograms, a perfume, and a DVD. I had never realized just how good a job counterfeiters can do. The inc cartridge was almost exactly like the original, including the packaging. It even had the holographic verification sticker, and you had to use the official hologram verifier tool from the company to see that the color was a tiny bit off.

Even more sobering, one sign said that 50% of medicine sold online in Europe is counterfeit. Maybe it works, most likely it doesn't, and maybe it is toxic. Who knows. DON'T BUY MEDICINE ONLINE! After going to this expo I am also really hesitant to buy anything else online either, at least brand name stuff. Counterfeiters won't bother copying an off-brand because they don't make as much money off of the name. Street vendors are also very, very sketchy. Think twice and study carefully before making a purchase.

After that I visited math land and studied chaos theory and statistics. I started an interactive display about chess, quickly landed myself in a stalemate, and left when the computer offered to let me see if I could do better than Kasparov. Nope, not likely. I played with fractals for a little bit and then headed over to a section dedicated to sound. I used software to make a computerized mouth say different vowels by moving the lips, jaw, tongue, etc. Two other programs required you to come up with ways to reduce unwanted noise. I did both of those in French to pick up some vocabulary.

They had a room outfitted with the ultimate in surround sound -24 speakers- which carried me, with my eyes closed, into exotic locations like the beach and a tropical rainforest. I also heard a rabbit sighing in his sleep, snails eating, and a volcano venting just before an eruption. Outside they had an little exhibit where the music played at the tempo you kept with the conductor's wand. Unfortunately for everyone in hearing range, they were letting the children try it.

From there I went to two related exhibits. The first dealt with perspective and how our eyes and brain use it to make sense out of our surroundings. The second dealt with light and how our eyes and our mind process it. There were lots of optical illusions in both displays and plenty of things that made you shake your head and say, "Did I just see what I think I just saw?" There was one room split into many bizarre pieces that only made sense when you saw them from one particular spot. Then someone would step into the room and it looked like they were cut in two by a wall. Another room was built in two different perspectives so that if two people walked in at opposites sides one would like a hobbit or the other like a giant. In another room there was a miniature movie set with lights all around it and a camera projecting the view onto a big screen. You had to turn the lights on and off to get the right effect for a particular situation or time of day.

I had to leave the perspective exhibit without spending much time in the virtual reality area (though I did see the creepy artificial intelligence girl who follows you around the room with her eyes) because they were in the process of kicking us out for closing. I succeeded in seeing all of the exhibits but I am a little sad that I didn't get to watch any of the demonstrations and mini-seminars that were going on all weekend. It was such a huge place with so much to see, it would probably take a week to do a "proper" job of seeing it. But I praise God for giving me two free days in this museum, one of the best in Paris.

Look what hatched!