CHSI

Exhibitions

div

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Science Center 251 - Ongoing

 

This joint exhibition was prepared by the students of Prof. Janet Browne's Nature on Display (History of Science 134), and Prof. Jimena Canales' The Matter of Fact (History of Science 126).


THE FACT OF THE MATTER

 

While the word “fact” comes from the Latin factum a noun derived from facere which means to do or to make, this exhibit explores why in modern usage this term often conveys the opposite: facts are not made but they are “out there”. What is the relation between scientific facts and the instruments that are used to produce them? What is a fact?

“The Matter of Fact” analyzes important facts of nature and the instruments associated with the discovery, invention or maintenance of facts. We look at how scholars have dealt with questions of fact in the past and how they can still provide us with tools for thinking about them. Some famous facts, and some famous arguments for or against them, serve as the backdrop for each of the original contributions to the exhibit.

 

 

 

More Than Meets The Eye

Science is all about the interpretation of things that are seen or encountered through the other senses. Our exhibit explores this idea by focusing on the users and owners of scientific instruments. We ask “What did they see…?”

Created by students in the course “Nature on Display” in the Department of the History of Science, this exhibit is oriented around a single type of instrument, the microscope. The ones we have chosen were used by a diverse set of people for differing purposes. From homemade microscopes and small, portable lenses used by amateurs to examine specimens in the field to fancier models used by famous Harvard professors and great American novelists, these instruments reveal more than meets the eye.

 

Watch a brief movie illustrating the process involved in creating "More Than Meets The Eye."

 

Now Available:

View instruments from THE FACT OF THE MATTER and More Than Meets The Eye using Waywiser, our new online database!



div

 

Resources

Gallery Hours

Putnam Gallery
Science Center 136
Monday through Friday
11:00am to 4:00pm
Summer hours may vary.

Special Exhibitions Gallery
Science Center 251
Monday through Friday
9:00am to 5:00pm
Summer hours may vary.

Free and open to the public.
Children must be escorted by an adult.

Both the Putnam Gallery and Special Exhibitions are closed on University Holidays.

Inquiries: 617-495-2779

Directions

The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments is located inside the Science Center, 1 Oxford Street, on Harvard's Cambridge campus.