A museum that features all the innovations invented at MIT
Quick Stats
Location: MIT Campus – 314 Mainstreet
Hours: Daily 10:00am – 5:00pm
Cost: $20.00
Length of visit: ~2-4hours
Resources: https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology or more commonly called, MIT. Where only the smartest and brightest students and instructors are permitted to enter. Or… if your not that smart, but can pay them $20, they will let you snoop around their museum. Let’s take a look!Inside the museum is a collection of the innovations and technology that was developed at MIT. This instrument was created to measure solar wind in space. There are two identical instruments attached to the voyager 1 and 2 space craft. The two voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977 and are still on the go today. Travelling away from earth. MIT keeps track of how far they have gone in that time. Anybody clever at math can figure out when I visited this museum. 😉 This device is called a squeezer. It was developed as part of the LIGO observatory which had the goal of detecting gravitational waves. I’d love to explain how this device can “squeeze” light. But even after reading about it a few times, I’m not sure I totally understand. This was the next step up in the same LIGO experiment to detect gravitational waves. This prototype was roughly 1.5m in length. Eventually, they built two of these, one in Washington and one in Louisiana. The full scale version was over 4Km long, and it did work, detecting the presence of gravitational waves. Neat. The first full sequencing of the human genome occurred in 2003 and took over a decade to complete. This machine is 1/5th of a larger system developed by MIT that would automate the process of mapping the human genome. The previous genome sequencing machine would have cost roughly $10,000,000 to build. This device, developed by MIT called the MinION costs $1000 to build and performs the same task. The MinION is even onboard the international space station for DNA experiments in space. Try getting the old machine into space. Or how about this face mask, that can detect if you have COVID-19. One of MIT’s underlying themes is “Asking the questions others are not willing to ask”. So clearly somebody asked, can I build a robot arm that can win at Jenga?
Maybe some questions shouldn’t be asked anyway.
A very early computer, called Whirlwind, one of the fastest and best at the time. This one was used for a flight simulator during WWII.
One of the very first computers designed to play chess against a human.
One of the very first computer Random Access Memory modules. This one here contains 4000 bytes of memory. In comparison, the computer I’m typing this on has 16000000000 bytes of RAM. Incredible the difference between 1953 to today.
The guidance computer that was used during the Apolo 11 mission to the moon was developed at MIT in conjunction with NASA. I think this is a fitting last picture for the MIT museum. This small silicone wafer appears on the surface to have the MIT seal. But if you zoom in with a very powerful microscope, this little disk contains the name of every student, professor, administrator, janitor, lab assistant and anybody who has been a part of MIT from 1861 to 2020. They all contributed a small bit, that had huge impacts on humanity. I almost forgot, traditional selfie of higher learning.
Looks like an interesting place. Also brings back memories of my work colleague and friend Allen Follinsbe who received his PHD from MIT and died unnecessarily in a hunting accident. You met him once at the Calgary airport when you picked me up from a business trip.
1 Comment
ted lawrence · November 9, 2025 at 9:10 pm
Looks like an interesting place. Also brings back memories of my work colleague and friend Allen Follinsbe who received his PHD from MIT and died unnecessarily in a hunting accident. You met him once at the Calgary airport when you picked me up from a business trip.