My parents came to visit from Illinois last weekend, and we took them to see the new, souped-up Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History, the latest in modern, computer-driven displays. It was a good show, and I was impressed by what the technology can do, but, for me, it was inevitably a little disappointing.
I say inevitably because I was fortunate enough to grow up in Elgin, which has a small planetarium of its own, a publicity stunt for the now-defunct Elgin watch factory. (The idea being that these precision watches had their own observatory to ensure they left the factory perfectly timed.) The planetarium ran an after-school astronomy program for a few kids from every grade school, including regular permission to run the control panel. As an adult, I boggle at the thought that they let kids handle the panel, with enough knobs and dials and toggle switches to rival a WWII-era airplane. Between that program and the Ojai summer camp and a few basic MIT physics classes, I've picked up a lay grasp of astronomy. I don't know much, but I still know more than the ordinary guy on the street, so planetarium programs geared for the general public rarely teach me anything new, though seeing the planetarium itself at work is always interesting. Still, I keep hoping, so I'm always a little disappointed.
After the planetarium, Eileene insisted we check out the butterfly exhibit, as long as we were at the museum. There's a special exhibit stationed in what used to be a hall describing the migration of species about the south Pacific, now a small greenhouse which about forty people can squeeze through at a time. Double sets of doors guard both entrance and exit, to prevent anything but humans getting out. Within is an astonishing quantity of moths and butterflies, with wingspans anywhere between 4 and 19cm. Staff carry orange wedges to attract them for visitors to inspect, but just as often, they land on the visitors, themselves. In a happy circumstance, the butterflies only land on people who don't reach out for them; butterflies see a groping hand as ?predator,? so overeager children don't get a chance to hurt the bugs, and the less restrained adults get a lesson in nature's relations with man. Unless you're a small child, frightened of large butterflies ? and many are, from what I saw ? it's a magical, Disney-esque environment. I kept expecting to see singing marmosets emerge from the undergrowth.
So, much to my surprise, the highlight of the outing, at least for me, was the soft-edged, touchy-feely exhibit where we looked at pretty things, rather than my usual favorite of hard-edged, number-crunching science. I must be mellowing in my old age.
(Actually, the highlight of the outing was the fresh Gung Bao chicken at Grand Sichuan International that evening, but that's another story. I'm still paying for the pepper sauce, but it was worth the price.)