If you’re in New York City and like math, consider stopping by the Math Midway, an interactive math exhibit running 10-6 this Sunday, June 14 as part of this year’s World Science Festival Street Fair. (The World Science Festival, despite its name, seems always to take place in New York. Reminds me of a book I read at Emmanuel’s house, an Encyclopedie des Fromages du Monde which was in fact about the cheeses of France.) Two more Greenwich Village recommendations from last week’s visit to New York: new Italian storefront restaurant Risotteria and Stephen Merritt’s musical adaptation of Coraline.
It seems that the people behind the Midway are planning to launch a full-scale museum of mathematics, to be called Math Factory and located somewhere in Greater New York. Is this a good idea?
Update: I almost forgot my most important New York recommendation: the Francis Bacon retrospective at the Met, which is even better than Risotteria and Coraline.
Quomodocumque 
I think I went to risotteria quite a while ago, maybe in the summer of 2001? At least, it was a place in the Village that specialized in risotto. If that was the place I’m thinking of, I’m not sure I’d describe them as “new”.
And I am half-seriously considering making a trip up to NY (from Philadelphia) on Sunday.
As for whether museums are good: museum exhibits are certainly good. I especially like the one in the (Boston) Museum of Science. The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia had one that wasn’t horrible, but they got rid of it a few years back when they went through a dumbing-down campaign; it was definitely influential in getting me interested in math. I’m not sure how well it would scale, but there’s only one way to find out.
Maybe you’re right about Risotteria. I had in mind a meta-argument that I’m often in that part of New York, and Risotteria seems like the kind of restaurant I’d definitely notice and want to try if I walked by it, and I’d never noticed it before.
Jordan, where are you currently?
Here I must take my most outrageous French accent (as explained here) and say “Non, non, non, au contraire, le book it was called Encyclopédie des fromages“, subtitled Guide illustré de plus de 350 fromages de toutes les régions de France (Illustrated guide of more than 350 cheeses from all regions of France).”
(In the spirit of scholarly completeness, it must be mentioned that this book is a French translation of the original “French cheeses”, published by Dorling – Kindersley, and that the authors are K. Masui and T. Yamada, who are very likely not French, except in spirit of course).
I kind of knew that story was too good for me to have remembered it correctly…
But as someone with an illustrious story-telling background, you should know not to let the facts get in the way of a good story :)