MUSEUM OF SCIENCE- BOSTON

My Dear Kush,

 

For travelers, like us ,it is must to visit tourist places like that of Boston ,which is a very big city and capital of Massachusetts state of USA . For tourists, there is "hop on hop off' or duck tourism where you have to purchase tourist ticket and visit all the places in one day ;there are at-least 12 visiting places and one facility in this tourist system is that you can catch any tourist bus (it is different ,duck shaped, moving slowly in the city) ,get down to any tourist place and spend your own time  and then again take another bus for other spot but you have to visit all places in one day on that ticket.  You can log Google and see yourself the tourist spots of Boston.

 

But persons like me can not visit more than two tourist places in a day due to my habit of going into details in each item ; moreover, I feel tired and may confine myself only to one .Therefore, I was not much enthusiastic to visit as a  duck tourist and decided to visit the important places as per its natives.

 

For me, there appeared three important places in Boston - first was museum of science, second Art museum or history museum and third is its beaches and I preferred first to visit - guess - yes museum of science and only three ( your mausajee, Ruhan and me) were interested to visit this place.

 

I was watching this city with a new look, by entering its lanes (earlier we were passing only high ways) . Really ,roads are very wide, clean and cars and cars . There was a highway on one side of the road and I observed electric bus passing through this electric connection - we can't call it an electric train , neither it was like tram of Calcutta, -there may be other forms running on this track.

 

 

Though we mostly observe double story wooden buildings outside Boston but this place was boasting high scrappers -like Bangalore or Delhi- the highest, visible from a long distance, appeared blue and might be at-least a 100 story building ..However I could observe one difference in these buildings ; all these buildings were having glasses ,every where-all the windows are showing glasses ( this is the pattern of whole country- here in your mausi's home also, there are only glasses in the windows -no wooden work or iron frame) ; some buildings were showing brick construction ; their walls are made of bricks - you may minutely observe museum of science building - it was also depicting brick work  and it  was five storied building - our car could be parked only on last terrace of the building ,from where we took a photograph ,where Ruhan is sitting on the car. But, unlike to our country, there is no plastering hence brick structure remained as such , I have seen this work in Haryana Agriculture University where all the structures were made of bricks but with out cement plastering ( though new construction is changing )- it does not look odd (as we consider in India) .I think cement plastering is absent here, either the walls are made of bricks or they are decorated with vinyl ,  granite ,tiles, stones or other material.

 

When you alighted from the car , you can see other persons also moving , a rare scenario  in America, and when we reached to the ticket counters  there was heavy rush and persons were standing in queue. Another change was observed in this place. Though there is a queue but at the counters there will be only one person (and his accomplish )and when he is finished, other person will move to the counter and so on .

By looking to the population, it appears confirmed that your necktie is out of fashion as we could watch it only in TV shows or perhaps at some formal occasions. Here I failed to see necktie on any single person - either old or young or child. Perhaps, our trousers or pants have also become out dated as informal dress  as I could see all of them , except some old gentlemen, in shorts This might also be as this is summer season here. Even the shoes were either without socks or they are not bigger than their ankle ; I have watched these new type socks, (only up to ankle) in the shops, confirming switching form old to new one (not sure , if its only in summer season) .  Most of the women have also discarded their skirt and these were in the shorts ; it appears they are particular about the occasion ; when they are not in their office, why they should bear a formal dress ? but for us, its same- either formal or informal event ?  

 

Do you remember our visit to Vishwashariya museum at Bangalore which we made with whole of our family. I have admired that museum as the learning place for our young generation ;that museum has a lot to tell to our young generation. But here , the science museum was much bigger and contained many more informative material for brilliant students like you. Beside the exhibiting material, they are also arranging Presentations which are of half an hour and touches one or other aspect of science ; as we witnessed one of  their science live show, depicting science of cold ....I will tell you some important exhibits of the museum

 

At the entry of Green Wing of the museum , we witnessed transverse section of trunk of a tree which was two thousand year old . They narrated how to determine age of a tree, a lens was  installed to count the rings in the trunk and each ring was depicting 8 years of that tree

 

We entered in the section of models which tells how maps were first prepared and how one can read it. As you know, this is Mesopotamia, in Iraq , from where human civilization emerged and fist humans started writing  not in letters but in figures and there was a map showing measurements of a land , in the form of some figures (the museum encourage you to decode the figures) . There was the model of whole Himalaya mountain where distance between  each row of the model was depicting 100 feet height ; it was also showing the rout taken by the first climber- perhaps Tej sang . It fully gave credit to the Director General of Survey of Archaeology of India , Everest , who mapped first time this mountain in 1842-43 and on whose name the peak was named as Mount Everest. On the outside of this exhibition, a girl was standing with human bones on her table; she was there to explain and persons may take and feel the bones ; I remember , I saw the bones , first time when we get entry in our anatomy class -its osteology and here  any person may know about his bones- of course large bones and skull.

 

In one section ,you become a Radiologist for one day and know how to read a X-ray photograph. There is full demonstration informing  you about the blood vessels, heart , and finally a spot which is a matter of concern and needs further investigations. There are large boards showing important medical devices ; about X ray , who invented, how it works and its limitations ; likewise , you may know about medical applications of  Ultra-Sonography;  , CAT scanning and MRI ; I may tell you that CAT scanning is a type where X rays are used to take photographs of soft tissues while MRI is magnet resonation imagination  hence not recommended in the persons with pace-makers or stints - any metallic devices ,implanted in their body ( I increased my knowledge by reading these boards ). There was whole section depicting the properties of light , mirror and lens; you can see how  mirrors have been arranged so that one person appears in 72 images -this phenomenon of images was first time beautifully used in our film industry by K. Asif in his film -Mugal-E- Azam where images of  actress Madhubala were depicted in the court yard of emperor Akbar . Again there was a box where you do any activity and flash of light will show your past activity on a wall- pl see the picture.

The section of dinosaurs was showing real whole skeleton which was built from the material excavated from this country only ; though I am skeptic about recovering whole Skelton after so many years, may be a fabricated work ?. Then there was whole knowledge how fossils are formed and rocks which are suitable for fossil formation. In fact, these are the fossils whose studies have thrown light on many invertebrates else its difficult to know about their periods. There was also a fossil showing foot mark of a dinosaur- really, it was more big than of any animal , we have ever witnessed. A whole division was devoted for exhibiting different types of butterflies ; like wise, there was whole section showing different types of birds, wild animals , all kinds present in USA and there were many exhibitions showing habitats of these birds or other animals.

Ruhan continued to enjoy these exhibitions and took part in doing required activities. Perhaps, the most interesting section was that of computer where all the details and their functioning were shown. Moreover, there were paper cuttings revealing how computer identify alphabets etc and then there were papers with computer language and you decode the message ; Ruhan enjoyed a model where by changing computer codes, the sound as well as figure of a dog was changing ; Ruhan enjoyed this section most and simultaneously learnt how our computer works.

I surprised to see the model of printer which is printing in 3 D ; thus if you are commanding for a table, it will not be a photo of a table but a real replica of a table . There was a plastic rope running in the printer and it takes about one hour to fulfill your command. I have heard about this 3 D printer and its utility in designing in auto mobile and other industries . And the model with its working was there to show our students and general public high it works.

One important difference ,from Bangalore, I noticed was the presence of some trained girls who were sitting to help you while you are trying to emulate any event you are interested. Thus there were girls who were helping  in computer section how to decode a computer system and alike matters. Moreover, as I have said earlier, there were science shows conducted by the trained staff ; here , they themselves arranged all the material for the show and then did the event themselves without help of any assistant.

Time was less to visit this whole museum and we have to leave a section of blue wing  as the museum staff started asking the public to  leave the museum as it  was 7 o clock -the time to close the museum. Really, you can learn a lot by visiting our museums - of any kind - it may be scientific or historical.

I am attaching some photographs of the museum for your perusal. With love and affection