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Browse exhibits by their name.
Turn the crank and watch a moving cell model. Different parts of the cell extend and retract, and the cell’s internal bulk sometimes shifts from one area to another.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Getting a drink of water would be very different if you were the size of a doll.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
At first glance, the giant see-through-erector-set-like structure seems to be a realization of one of Leonardo da Vinci's mechanical inventions.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Would you, could you, will you drink from a water fountain fashioned from an actual—but unused—toilet? Porcelain is just porcelain . . . right?
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Change your perception of color by flooding your eyes with colored light.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
An eerie orchestral chord floats on the breeze; it’s the shimmering sound of a 27-foot tall harp being strummed by the wind.
Where: Gallery 5: Outdoor Exhibits
Aeolian Landscape presents a swirling storm of sand inside a large chamber covered by a plexiglass top. A knob on the top of the exhibit rotates a sturdy fan set in the base of the chamber.
Situate yourself at just the right place in space in front of this parabolic mirror array and you’ll see dozens of your own eyeballs peering back at you.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
What we see can depend on what we expect to see.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
A cylindrical mirror turns a curved bench into something quite different, taking a Renaissance-era illusion into the third dimension. The installation encourages playful interactions among users, bringing people together both visually and socially as they explore the unexpected effects.
Where: Plaza
A stop-motion animation is made of many pictures, each slightly different from the last.
Where: Gallery 2: Tinkering
Quick-changing views create the illusion of motion.
Here’s an exhibit where watching is at least half the fun. You can create any number of gravity-defying illusions that will amaze you and your friends: Levitate, fly, swim though the air, grow limbs (and dissolve them), crawl straight up the wall like a lizard—the sky’s the limit.
Archimedes is comprised of two 8-foot diameter dish-like chairs placed 80 feet apart. Each dish’s parabolic curve collects and focuses sound waves and reflects them to participants seated within them. Even whispers uttered from one dish can be clearly heard by the surprised listener seated in the opposite dish.
Where: Plaza
Examine living HeLa cells—the first “immortal” cell line—and explore ethical and philosophical questions about these historic and controversial cells.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
As One invites two participants to partner, and take turns in the roles of leader or follower as they mirror one another’s movements.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
A reflector stretches light from colored tiles into long bright ribbons.
Thousands of distinct species live and breathe (or not) in this colorful bacterial terrarium. Look for green cyanobacteria, orange iron oxidizers, and gray cellulose eaters. What you see today will be gone tomorrow in this living artwork in a perpetual state of change.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Levitating on an invisible stream of air, a beach ball seems to defy gravity. If you try to pull the ball out, you can feel a force pulling it back in—the same force that keeps an airplane in flight.
Where: Ray and Dagmar Dolby Atrium
Five clear, rotating disks provide beautiful windows onto the motion of sediments in the Bay. Spin them to compare the behavior of gravel, sand, and fine silt—how the currents carry them and how they settle out of the swirling waters.
Where: Koret Foundation Bay Walk
Tilt a spinning bicycle wheel while you’re sitting in a swivel chair and—surprise—you’ll start spinning in circles, too. You can also witness the same phenomenon here by hanging a spinning wheel from its axle.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Each of the chairs in this series has dimensions that are twice that of the smaller chair. But doubling the dimension of a chair doesn’t double its strength.
Distinct tones combine in the hum of this tuning fork.
Developed by artist Michael Brown in collaboration with reclaimed wood specialist Evan Shively, a several-hundred-year-old Douglas fir was split down the center to reveal its rings, immersing visitors in a fascinating study of dendrochronology.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
These upside down, bike-powered machines are built to throw ropes twenty feet into the air. Acting a bit like water and a bit like rope, the loops dance along the ground as visitors play an Exploratorium-style game of jump rope.
Where: Gallery 5: Outdoor Exhibits
Stare at a bird’s eye for 30 seconds, then look into the empty cage. You’ll see a ghostly bird—of a very different color—inside the cage
At this simple but ever-popular exhibit, black sand from nearby beaches make spiky patterns that reveal the invisible magnetic field between the poles of two giant magnets.
Where: Ray and Dagmar Dolby Atrium
Gaze into the eyepiece at the blue light, looking for bright specks moving in short bursts against the background, and feeling your pulse as you watch them.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Air—not water—erupts through fine powder to sculpt these roiling streams.
At this exhibit, find out how subjective brightness can be as you struggle—and fail—to correctly decide whether the squares you see are black or white.
The combination of past experience and the sight and feel of being touched seems to change your brain's definition of your body's boundaries. You may even feel as if the fake hand is part of you.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
These tiles aren't really crooked–they just look that way.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
When you set these pendulums swinging, the motion of each one affects the others.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
Sand scattered on a large metal square vibrates and jumps in response to the sound of your voice. When you hit just the right note(s), the sand spontaneously migrates into elegant geometrical patterns.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
There are captivating reflections in a box of ornaments.
Electricity moving in a wire makes a circular magnetic field.
Where: Gallery 2: Tinkering
Fluttering waves whirl around the edge, creating patterns of evenly spaced ripples.
Where: Entrance
Try building these circuits found in everyday objects.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Look down into the chamber and you’ll see an ongoing cascade of thin white trails appearing and disappearing. These are cosmic ray tracks, created by high-energy subatomic particles from space.
When can reading get in the way of speaking?
Overlapping pools of red, blue, and green create a Venn diagram of additive color.
Step in front of this wall, and you’ll make shadows of various colors—yellow, magenta, cyan, red, green, blue, and yes, even black—that wiggle, jump, and dance along with you.
Air blowing over the surface of water inside a large Plexiglas hemisphere mimics the action of the wind over the ocean by generating waves. The waves slowly change and build until the entire volume of water is circulating as one wave. Viewers can adjust the speed of the air blower and influence the building of the waves.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems