[Question] “Science Cathedrals”

My favorite place in the world is Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. When I was younger, I would constantly beg my parents to take me there. It was pretty far, and it’s not exactly enjoyable to drive through Chicago, but I’d ask anyways. It felt to me like the one place in the world I’d been that felt like a monument to trying.

It had things like explanations (along with simulations!) of how lightning worked, or a scale-ish model of the solar system (in a long hallway to the planetarium area), a moonrock, explanations of how cities might be built in the future, and so much more[1]. On the ceiling of the main are were the names of famous scientists and inventors, from Tesla to Foucault to Galileo and way more.

Looking back from where I stand now, it feels like the building was a cathedral to Science, the same as a normal cathedral is a cathedral to Religion.

What other places exist like this? Where can I take friends or a kid one day to marvel at the way the world works? Things like special planetariums or such are probably on track, but there’s surely much more.


  1. ↩︎

    a whole-ass train, a captured German U-boat, the Apollo 8 command module, and I’m not running out of steam yet.

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