The digits of pi go on forever, without ever falling into a repeating pattern. Therefore any sequence of numbers you can think of—your ZIP code, your birthday, your phone number—are bound to appear in ...

It takes just 21 days for an egg to go from just laid to newly hatched chick, and a lot goes on in just the first week. Look closely and you’ll find blood vessels, a backbone, wing buds, eyes, a brain ...

Take off and fly in a mirror that makes half your body look whole. Here’s an exhibit where watching is at least half the fun. Positioned at one end of this large flat mirror, you can create any number ...

Turbulent Orb is a half-meter diameter sphere full of special, colored, flow-visualization fluid. The sphere is mounted on top of a pedestal, it spins on a good bearing. Visitors grasp a metal ring on ...

Toss some chips to estimate pi. Using a calculator at the exhibit you can divide the number chips by the number of crossings. The more chips you throw the closer this ratio gets to pi. This surprising ...

Gas Model is a transparent plastic cylinder with bouncing balls activated by a vibrating plate. The moving balls lift a disk to a height which depends on the amount of energy introduced by the ...

Sunlight–reflected and refracted–paints an ever-changing color composition. Created by artist Bob Miller, this classic Exploratorium exhibit is a “live” painting that uses light from the Sun as its ...

A strip of 64 computer-controlled LEDs flashes on and off extremely rapidly. When you look in the mirror and quickly move it from side to side—or sweep your eyes sideways—the changing pattern of light ...

The Drawing Board is a pendulum that draws a unique design.

Use your voice to make visible patterns in sand. 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 ...

With a mere touch from your fingertip, you can create waves in the chain that move in decidedly strange ways, warping as they wander. The apparent strangeness is a result of relative motion. Waves ...

Floater Theater is an intimate theatrical environment that whimsically prompts participants to explore the fascinating, commonly experienced phenomenon of eye floaters. During Katchadourian ’s ...