Interviewed by Joelle Seligson

This interview appeared in the March/April 2012 issue of Dimensions magazine.

Picture a steaming air hockey puck spinning in a circle while floating in midair. This strange vision resembles a phenomenon demonstrated by Tel Aviv University’s Superconductivity Group at the 2011 ASTC Annual Conference in Baltimore last October. The “floating puck” was in fact a crystal wafer coated with a thin layer of ceramic material and cooled to -301˚ F (-185˚ C). At that point it becomes a superconductor, conducting electricity without resistance or energy loss—unlike the copper wires often used in electrical devices, which inefficiently cast off some electricity as it flows through.

Although superconductivity was discovered a century ago by Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, the researchers at Tel Aviv University were the first to create a thin superconductor using high-quality materials. They also discovered that the improved features of this new applied superconductor enabled it to levitate.

The result, called quantum levitation, looks like a scene in a futuristic film, perhaps explaining why a video of the demonstration went viral, earning 5 million views within a week. Tel Aviv University physicist Boaz Almog, who is heard explaining the phenomenon in the video, talked with Dimensions about superconductivity’s past, present, and future.

Read the full transcript, or listen to the podcast.

About the image: Members of Tel Aviv University’s Superconductivity Group (from left to right: Guy Deutscher, Barak Deutscher, Mishael Azoulay, and Boaz Almog) demonstrate quantum levitation. Photo courtesy Boaz Almog

This discussion was originally published in the Viewpoints department of the March/April 2012 of Dimensions magazine.

Along with traditional measures of financial performance and customer satisfaction, a successful science center needs to show how it achieves its mission of engaging the public in science and technology. An innovative approach would be to convert evaluation studies into measures that account for the quality of the visitor learning experience, and to include these measures in the museum’s organizational scorecard.

Chantal Barriault, co-director of science communication and senior scientist, research and evaluation, Science North, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

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IN THIS ISSUE
January/February 2012

Exhibitions are perhaps the most quintessential and exciting element of science centers’ work. In this issue of Dimensions, we examine the exhibition philosophies of various institutions, as well as the design principles that lead to great exhibition experiences. In addition, we explore the advantages of tinkering and prototyping in house, the benefits and drawbacks of hosting a major blockbuster, the importance of community in the exhibit development process, and creative ways to extend the exhibition experience post-visit. We hope some of the questions and ideas raised here will form the basis of a future ASTC Community of Practice on exhibits.

Contents

• Designing Exhibits for the Experience, by Robert L. Russell
• Creating ExhibitFiles, by Wendy Pollock and Kathleen McLean
• On Growth and Form: Patterns in the Evolution of Exhibits, by Stuart Kohlhagen
• Internal Capacity: Making a Good Museum Great, by Paul Orselli
• Shared Creativity in Exhibit Development, by Betsy Adamson
• Seven Commandments of an Experience Design Company, by Esther Hamstra
• What Is Your Institution’s Exhibition Philosophy?
• Explore More: Extending the Visitor Experience, by Dan Bird
• A Commentary on Blockbuster Traveling Exhibitions, by Robert (Mac) West

Download the full issue.

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By Paul Orselli
From Dimensions
January/February 2012

When I think about the most enjoyable and memorable places—truly great museums—that I’ve visited over a lifetime of avid museum-going, the ones that bubble to the top include the City Museum, St. Louis; the  Exploratorium, San Francisco; the Minnesota History Center, St. Paul; and the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. When I think about the traits such a disparate group of institutions might have in common, I keep coming back to one thing: internal capacity.

By “internal capacity” I mean a museum’s ability to handle core functions like exhibit development, design, and fabrication with its own resources (human and otherwise). Not so long ago, this type of internal capacity was standard operating procedure for museums: “People visit us to see exhibits, and we make the exhibits they come to see.” Today, this notion of internal capacity, especially as it relates to exhibits, seems to be less common. New museums often open without any exhibits workshop space or staff, and more established museums are whittling their exhibits department to a skeleton crew, or in the worst cases, to nothing.
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This is an extended version of an article that appeared in the January/February 2012 issue of Dimensions magazine.

We map our audience’s attitudes, knowledge base, and expectations—not in order to meet those expectations, but rather to overcome them, to surprise our visitors, and to create the aha! of the Heureka experience. More than designing objects, we design the actions and interactions of the audience. This is closer to dramaturgy than playwriting. As on a stage, we direct the spotlights to bring up details that will illuminate parts of the whole and wake up the curiosity of the visitor. The visitors will always have the leading roles in this play; leaving their personal trace in the exhibition will make it their story.
Mikko Myllykoski, experience director, Heureka, the Finnish Science Centre, Vantaa
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