Mathematics: the Winton Gallery, Science Museum, London
This intriguing gallery sums up the little-told stories about how maths has shaped our world
How do you feel about maths? Many readers are probably anxious even discussing the subject. Others will be wondering what could possibly go in a maths gallery – sums? Slide rules? Calculators? Meanwhile, it’s an often-heard complaint of maths educators that British adults will declare, “I can’t do maths”, when they would never say, “I can’t read”. And that’s before we start to look at gender stereotypes and maths, let alone exam results.
However, we unconsciously use maths in our daily lives with regard to time, money, weight and shape. So it’s welcome news that the Science Museum has opened the only maths gallery in any UK national museum. It’s also fitting that its design was led by the late Zaha Hadid, a mathematician turned architect, who, when growing up in Iraq, “would play with math problems just as we would play with pens and paper to draw”.
The design of the space takes its inspiration straight from mathematics. A 1929 Handley Page “Gugnunc” aeroplane is suspended at the centre of the gallery. The plane represented an important step forward in aviation safety, achieved because its designers applied the mathematics of airflow to the design of its wings. A new representation of the airflow over the plane surrounds visitors in the gallery. Fabric curves around and overhead, and lines pattern the floor. These lines also define the positions of the showcases to some extent. Visitors can walk beneath the plane and its swirling currents, or walk around it to discover the other 119 objects on display.
The lighting is soft, with calming colours – grey, blue and pink. This is a quiet space and though occasionally the sound spilling over from the Energy gallery next door breaks the mood, it does the opposite just as often, the eerie noises being oddly complementary.
Visitors react to the space in different ways: some photograph the installation, others brush their fingers along it as they walk past or rest on the benches beneath it. A little girl swings under a low sweep of the fabric, playing hide and seek with her mother.
Eclectic mix
Some countries have a whole museum just for maths, and the potential content for this one space was enormous. But the gallery’s focus is tight. The space is about maths developed and used as a tool by humanity, presented largely through objects from the Science Museum’s collection and thus spanning the past four centuries.
Text structures the storytelling – panels guide visitors to explore maths in sections titled War and Peace, Form and Beauty, Money, Trade and Travel among others – and explains concisely why each object is mathematical and what its value has been. A minor criticism is that the main text panels could be more integrated into the overall look and feel of the gallery. On arrival, they seemed to parade towards me as an addition to, rather than part of, the installation overhead – though they are useful for navigation.
I particularly enjoyed the definition of the word “mathematician” with its most inclusive meaning: “Salespeople and sailors, gamblers and garden designers, coders and traders … all may be thought of as mathematicians.” And there are plenty of people here, women as well as men, in diverse but mathematical roles, represented in quotes and images.
But for me it’s the objects that make this gallery and hold visitors’ attention. They are a satisfyingly eclectic mix, from the National Lottery’s Random Number Selector machine, Guinevere, to a door frame from Lincoln’s Inn Fields (built to particular proportions), and lecture diagrams illustrating perspective by JMW Turner, to a sextant (used to navigate at sea).
For certain objects the display is supplemented by animations and films that show how they work. This is welcome as it is powerful and adds depth – the mathematical thinking required to use an astrolabe (used by early astronomers to measure the altitude of stars and planets) shares an experience from the past.
There are, as always, objects that demand more engagement than we are granted. The cabinet of foreign weights (used to facilitate international trade in the 19th century) is full of enticing bronze weights that I wanted to pick up and compare. And after the astrolabe animation, I really wanted to try one for myself.
Judging by my enthusiasm, there is scope to engage visitors further. There could be workshops or handling collections for some audiences, for example. This might also broaden access to the stories for those who find text a barrier.
A force for good and evil
Some objects have dark stories. There is a mechanical computer used in enriching uranium, which in turn was used in a bomb dropped on Hiroshima. There is a set of glass eyes used by Francis Galton, the 19th-century scientist who coined the term “eugenics”, to gather data on the human population with a view to improving the human race.
It’s good to see this difficult content isn’t ignored and interesting to think about how these stories might be taken further. For example, although for many the word eugenics is reminder enough, not everyone will realise from the Galton section how thoroughly the concepts of “wrong” and “right” were mixed in his ideas, or that eugenics came to be associated with Nazi racial policies. I’d also like to know how the calculating-machine operators felt about their connection to Hiroshima – did they know where their careful work was going to lead?
But even without that detail, the objects show that maths can be used for ill as well as good, making it clear that mathematicians are human and that ethics is as relevant in maths as it is in medicine.
It would be easy to think that now that the Winton Gallery is open, the museum sector has got maths covered for the next 20 years. But for me, this gallery shows the opposite. It shows just how well maths can work as a museum subject: human, object-rich, and full of stories. There is much more maths out there that’s barely touched on – mathematical patterns in nature, the prehistoric development of numbers and counting, the way a mathematician’s brain works, just to name a few.
The Science Museum has created a space that shows maths as beautiful and relevant, and with a heritage that a wide range of people can feel that they own. I’d recommend this gallery both to those who are curious about maths and to those who don’t see why they would be. And it might inspire museum professionals to reflect on the maths in their own institutions’ collections.
Alexandra Fitzsimmons is a lecturer in museums studies at the Science Communication Unit, Imperial College London, and the chief executive of the Maths on Toast charity
In 2009 we carried out research into visitors’ attitudes towards mathematics. It showed unequivocally that encouraging visitors across the threshold of a mathematics gallery is a significant challenge. Confidence levels on the subject in the population at large are at rock-bottom and, for some, a sense of failure dominates their feelings towards the subject.
As one adult participant in our research described: “At school, if you didn’t get it right the first time you were reduced to nothing, so the thought of maths makes me break out in a cold sweat.”
But the research also showed that visitors are interested in the tangible, real-world impact of maths, and in the connections between mathematics and their lives. This is where museums have a unique advantage – we are in the business of the real.
This external focus links the curatorial content with the gallery’s architecture. Zaha Hadid Architects structured the entire display using mathematical equations of airflow around an aircraft suspended at its heart, which was built as part of a major 1920s research programme to increase aviation safety.
One noted aerodynamicist, Letitia Chitty, recalled the wider challenge: “There were no programmes, no calculating machines. We relied on our slide rules and arithmetic in the margins. Lives were at stake and we couldn’t afford to let anything go through wrong.”
David Rooney is the lead curator of Mathematics: The Winton Gallery at the Science Museum, London
Main funders David and Claudia Harding; Samsung; MathWorks
Architect Zaha Hadid Architects
Structural engineering Arup
Construction design Gardiner & Theobald
Main contractor Paragon
Lighting Arup Lighting
Graphic design In house
Interpretation In house
Display cases Reier
Admission Free
However, we unconsciously use maths in our daily lives with regard to time, money, weight and shape. So it’s welcome news that the Science Museum has opened the only maths gallery in any UK national museum. It’s also fitting that its design was led by the late Zaha Hadid, a mathematician turned architect, who, when growing up in Iraq, “would play with math problems just as we would play with pens and paper to draw”.
The design of the space takes its inspiration straight from mathematics. A 1929 Handley Page “Gugnunc” aeroplane is suspended at the centre of the gallery. The plane represented an important step forward in aviation safety, achieved because its designers applied the mathematics of airflow to the design of its wings. A new representation of the airflow over the plane surrounds visitors in the gallery. Fabric curves around and overhead, and lines pattern the floor. These lines also define the positions of the showcases to some extent. Visitors can walk beneath the plane and its swirling currents, or walk around it to discover the other 119 objects on display.
The lighting is soft, with calming colours – grey, blue and pink. This is a quiet space and though occasionally the sound spilling over from the Energy gallery next door breaks the mood, it does the opposite just as often, the eerie noises being oddly complementary.
Visitors react to the space in different ways: some photograph the installation, others brush their fingers along it as they walk past or rest on the benches beneath it. A little girl swings under a low sweep of the fabric, playing hide and seek with her mother.
Eclectic mix
Some countries have a whole museum just for maths, and the potential content for this one space was enormous. But the gallery’s focus is tight. The space is about maths developed and used as a tool by humanity, presented largely through objects from the Science Museum’s collection and thus spanning the past four centuries.
Text structures the storytelling – panels guide visitors to explore maths in sections titled War and Peace, Form and Beauty, Money, Trade and Travel among others – and explains concisely why each object is mathematical and what its value has been. A minor criticism is that the main text panels could be more integrated into the overall look and feel of the gallery. On arrival, they seemed to parade towards me as an addition to, rather than part of, the installation overhead – though they are useful for navigation.
I particularly enjoyed the definition of the word “mathematician” with its most inclusive meaning: “Salespeople and sailors, gamblers and garden designers, coders and traders … all may be thought of as mathematicians.” And there are plenty of people here, women as well as men, in diverse but mathematical roles, represented in quotes and images.
But for me it’s the objects that make this gallery and hold visitors’ attention. They are a satisfyingly eclectic mix, from the National Lottery’s Random Number Selector machine, Guinevere, to a door frame from Lincoln’s Inn Fields (built to particular proportions), and lecture diagrams illustrating perspective by JMW Turner, to a sextant (used to navigate at sea).
For certain objects the display is supplemented by animations and films that show how they work. This is welcome as it is powerful and adds depth – the mathematical thinking required to use an astrolabe (used by early astronomers to measure the altitude of stars and planets) shares an experience from the past.
There are, as always, objects that demand more engagement than we are granted. The cabinet of foreign weights (used to facilitate international trade in the 19th century) is full of enticing bronze weights that I wanted to pick up and compare. And after the astrolabe animation, I really wanted to try one for myself.
Judging by my enthusiasm, there is scope to engage visitors further. There could be workshops or handling collections for some audiences, for example. This might also broaden access to the stories for those who find text a barrier.
A force for good and evil
Some objects have dark stories. There is a mechanical computer used in enriching uranium, which in turn was used in a bomb dropped on Hiroshima. There is a set of glass eyes used by Francis Galton, the 19th-century scientist who coined the term “eugenics”, to gather data on the human population with a view to improving the human race.
It’s good to see this difficult content isn’t ignored and interesting to think about how these stories might be taken further. For example, although for many the word eugenics is reminder enough, not everyone will realise from the Galton section how thoroughly the concepts of “wrong” and “right” were mixed in his ideas, or that eugenics came to be associated with Nazi racial policies. I’d also like to know how the calculating-machine operators felt about their connection to Hiroshima – did they know where their careful work was going to lead?
But even without that detail, the objects show that maths can be used for ill as well as good, making it clear that mathematicians are human and that ethics is as relevant in maths as it is in medicine.
It would be easy to think that now that the Winton Gallery is open, the museum sector has got maths covered for the next 20 years. But for me, this gallery shows the opposite. It shows just how well maths can work as a museum subject: human, object-rich, and full of stories. There is much more maths out there that’s barely touched on – mathematical patterns in nature, the prehistoric development of numbers and counting, the way a mathematician’s brain works, just to name a few.
The Science Museum has created a space that shows maths as beautiful and relevant, and with a heritage that a wide range of people can feel that they own. I’d recommend this gallery both to those who are curious about maths and to those who don’t see why they would be. And it might inspire museum professionals to reflect on the maths in their own institutions’ collections.
Alexandra Fitzsimmons is a lecturer in museums studies at the Science Communication Unit, Imperial College London, and the chief executive of the Maths on Toast charity
Focus on: visitor research
Mathematics: The Winton Gallery looks at the subject from the outside. This is to acknowledge an important cultural point often made by historians and mathematical practitioners, which is that mathematics has always been at the heart of everything we care about, from life and death to war and peace, money, trade, travel and beauty. It has helped shape our world, as well as being shaped by it.In 2009 we carried out research into visitors’ attitudes towards mathematics. It showed unequivocally that encouraging visitors across the threshold of a mathematics gallery is a significant challenge. Confidence levels on the subject in the population at large are at rock-bottom and, for some, a sense of failure dominates their feelings towards the subject.
As one adult participant in our research described: “At school, if you didn’t get it right the first time you were reduced to nothing, so the thought of maths makes me break out in a cold sweat.”
But the research also showed that visitors are interested in the tangible, real-world impact of maths, and in the connections between mathematics and their lives. This is where museums have a unique advantage – we are in the business of the real.
This external focus links the curatorial content with the gallery’s architecture. Zaha Hadid Architects structured the entire display using mathematical equations of airflow around an aircraft suspended at its heart, which was built as part of a major 1920s research programme to increase aviation safety.
One noted aerodynamicist, Letitia Chitty, recalled the wider challenge: “There were no programmes, no calculating machines. We relied on our slide rules and arithmetic in the margins. Lives were at stake and we couldn’t afford to let anything go through wrong.”
David Rooney is the lead curator of Mathematics: The Winton Gallery at the Science Museum, London
Project data
Cost £5mMain funders David and Claudia Harding; Samsung; MathWorks
Architect Zaha Hadid Architects
Structural engineering Arup
Construction design Gardiner & Theobald
Main contractor Paragon
Lighting Arup Lighting
Graphic design In house
Interpretation In house
Display cases Reier
Admission Free