After seeing the movie 21 a few years ago, one of my favorite parts was when the professor is talking about the situation in a game show where a contestant has to pick from 3 doors, one of which contains a prize. Once the contestant chooses a door, the host reveals that one of the other two doors does not contain the prize. It is always mathematically beneficial for the contestant to switch his choice to the remaining door. The Exploratorium has an exhibit in which you can test this theory by having one person play the host and move a disk behind one of the doors and the other person is the contestant and guesses. After trying it many times over the years, I can say that the theory discussed in 21 is definitely true.
One of the most impressive exhibits allows you to change the shutter speed on a camera which then takes a picture of a water drop falling into a cup of water.
Another of my favorite exhibits is a coil that is hot on one side, cold on the other, and the middle is hot and cold coils intertwined. When you put one hand on each side and then touch the middle of the coil, the temperature in the middle feels significantly more hot or cold than each side because of the contrast in temperatures.
The Exploratorium takes a very hands on approach to teaching science and is completely based on demonstration and experimentation. This reminded me of many of the art projects we were exposed to in the course which explored the boundaries between everyday life and art. I would definitely recommend visiting the Exploratorium to anyone in San Francisco because it is a much more fun and interactive approach to science than most other museums.
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