Growing Order out of Randomness is an exhibit being prepared for the Boston Museum of Science that grows naturally out of educational concepts and materials developed by our other projects. The effort is unusual in its collaboration between a local science museum and the scientific research arm of a university. The exhibit integrates graphics, artifacts, interactive electro-mechanical demonstration devices with state of the art interactive educational computer technology to demonstrate how microscopic randomness contributes to shapes in nature. It draws examples from a variety of scientific fields including physics, chemistry, earth sciences, and biology. Bacteria spread through a nutrient suspended in a gel.
Termites create a network of tunnels, foraging for food.
High voltage electrical discharge spreads through a plastic sheet. Neurons of the brain enrich their dendritic connections in vivo. Water courses downhill through soil particles to form eroded gullies. Mountain tops and valleys of the Hindu Kush are squeezed and contorted by the earth's vast tectonic plates. At this writing, March 1996, four interactive experiments directly linked to AV computers are in the final stages of production.