Abode of the Modern Muse: The Science Museum
Thomas K. Simpson
Originally published in the Great Ideas Today, 1998
The Great Ideas Today, an annual supplement to the Great Books of the Western World collection, was published by the Encyclopaedia Britanica from 1961 to 1998. John Van Doren, Editor
1. Introduction
The museum as grove of the Muses
In a society suffused with the sciences and their companions, the technologies, it is perhaps time to take our science museums more seriously than we have done in the past. We have always prized and delighted in these halls of wonder and investigation, but we may not have thought enough about their special role as the forum in which we meet to contemplate the sciences and reflect on their role in our past, present, and future lives.