Julia Hunter wrote:
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a "galton quincunx," a device used to drop balls to show a normal bell curve
distribution.  Do any of you science museum folks have such an exhibit?
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Dr. Jan Anderson wrote:
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Many years ago I saw a galton quincunx at Chicago's Museum of Science and
Industry.  You might check with them.
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MSI did not have such an exhibit during my six years there, nor did I ever
hear anyone mention such a device, as you sometimes will hear visitors or
longtime staff fondly recall their old, removed favorites.  The best place to
start there, without getting the runaround, would be the collections office
at 312/684-1414, Ext. 2296.
 
The described exhibit, though, sounds an awful lot like one of my favorite
childhood exhibits at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle.  It was huge,
and we used to forgo precious minutes of field-trip time to wait for all the
balls to collect so that the could drop in a big, loud, spectacular cascade.
 (That was the big attraction, not learning about the standard distributions;
however, the concept was a snap when we got to high school and the math
teacher said, "You know, just like the little balls at the Pacific Science
Center.  We all got it.  Amazing, the power of undefined, immeasurable,
nontraditional learning.)  Anyway, if you're interested in PSC Bell-curve
thing, you might want to call their public relations coordinator, Ellie
Altenhof, at 206/443-2879.  They just got an internal e-mail system; you
might want to try this address:  [log in to unmask]
 
Good luck!
 
--Todd Happer
Information Services & Publications
Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC)
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Fax--202/783-7207
Fax to OCR computer--202/783-6523
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