The Mathematikum is a

science museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in ...

, located in

Gießen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univers ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

, which offers a huge variety of mathematical hands-on exhibits. It was founded by

Albrecht Beutelspacher Albrecht Beutelspacher (born 5 June 1950) is a German mathematician and founder of the Mathematikum. He is a professor emeritus of the University of Giessen, where he held the chair for geometry and discrete mathematics from 1988 to 2018. B ...

, a German mathematician. The Mathematikum opened its doors to visitors on 19 November 2002. It was inaugurated by the German president

Johannes Rau Johannes Rau (; 16 January 193127 January 2006) was a German politician (SPD). He was the president of Germany from 1 July 1999 until 30 June 2004 and the minister president of North Rhine-Westphalia from 20 September 1978 to 9 June 1998. In th ...

. Since then, the museum has attracted more than 1,500,000 visitors. Annually the museum is visited by more than 150,000 people. The museum is opened every day of the week, including Sunday and Monday.

Concept

The purpose of the Mathematikum is to let people of any age, gender and any qualification learn mathematics by personal experience, rather than teaching it using formulae or equations and hardly ever numbers and symbols. The visitors can therefore learn, by participating in more than 150 interactive exhibits in the museum and by gathering, a different mathematical experience from each of the exhibits.

Exhibits

Mathematical experiments include mirrors, a Leonardo bridge, soap films, and puzzles. Once every month on a Tuesday, a mathematician is invited. The mathematician is interviewed by professor Beutelspacher on ''Beutelspachers Sofa'' (Beutelspacher's Couch). At the end of the interview the audience can talk to the guest and ask them questions.

Awards

* 2004:

IQ Award The IQ Award is a prize donated by the high- IQ association Mensa to honor people and organisations who have made remarkable contributions to public welfare by an intelligent idea, scientific research about human intelligence or the positive imag ...

External links

*http://www.mathematikum.de Museums in Hesse Science museums in Germany Museums established in 2002 2002 establishments in Germany Giessen {{Hesse-struct-stub