The Latest |
 |
by Beverly Rosenbaum |
This year the Smithsonian Institution is celebrating its 150th birthday.
The centerpiece of the celebration is the "America's Smithsonian," a touring exhibition that includes some of the country's best-known treasures George Washington's sword, an Apollo command module, First Ladies' gowns, dinosaurs and famous works of art.
The 50,000-square-foot "America's Smithsonian" the world's largest traveling exhibit, comparable in size to a professional football field opened last February in Los Angeles and will tour a total of 12 American cities, spending four to six weeks in each host city.
The Houston exhibit will be at the George R. Brown Convention Center from Dec. 6, 1996 through Jan. 28, 1997. Both "America's Smithsonian" and Intel's related exhibit will be free to the public. An estimated eight to ten million people will view the treasures over a two-year period.
Intel's 25th Anniversary
"America's Smithsonian" will include more than 300 of the Institution's treasures. Intel, a Corporate Partner in this celebration, will also be marking an important anniversary of its own this year the 25th anniversary of its invention of the microprocessor, the "brain" of the personal computer.
In addition to participating as a sponsor of the Smithsonian's 150th anniversary, Intel's technology has also played a key role in planning, designing, and mounting the exhibit. Intel provided the design team with computers based on Intel's Pentium® and Pentium® Pro processors to coordinate and display the artifacts in each location.
The microprocessor has changed our lives since its introduction in 1971. In order to take a closer look at the role of this technology, Intel has developed a 3,000-square-foot exhibit on the personal computer that will travel with "America's Smithsonian."
The Intel exhibit will take visitors on an interactive journey into the world of personal computing and the amazing things PCs do for people today and will do tomorrow.
Visitors will engage in hands-on activities and experience for themselves how people of all ages and backgrounds around the world are using computers in new and exciting ways.
About the Smithsonian
The Smithsonian Institution was established with funds bequeathed to the United States by James Smithson, an English scientist. The Smithsonian is an independent trust instrumentality of the United States holding millions of artifacts and specimens in its trust for "the increase and diffusion of knowledge." The Institution is also a center for research dedicated to public education, national service and scholarship in the arts, sciences and history.
Established by an act of Congress in 1846, the Smithsonian Institution has grown into the world's largest museum complex and an international center for research. The Smithsonian preserves and cares for more than 140 million objects in 16 museums and several research facilities, archives, and libraries, and maintains living animals in the National Zoological Park. It is our country's treasure house, reflecting the diversity and complexity of our world.
The "America's Smith-sonian" exhibit contains a selection of the Institution's most treasured objects, each with a compelling story to tell. Many are testaments to significant historical events and unique human achievements. Some help us understand the everyday lives of past generations, reminding us that the objects we use today will become treasures in the future. Others are works of incalculable artistic value, revealing the imagination and creativity of the human spirit. Still others aid us in discovering and solving nature's puzzles so that we can better understand our place within the physical universe.
On the Web
Intel is also helping the Smithsonian broaden its exposure and accessibility to the public by assisting in the development of a World Wide Web site devoted to "America's Smithsonian." Intel has provided servers and computers to help create and operate the site. Intel engineers collaborated with the Smithsonian's Web team to design state-of-the-art features, including a "3-D" element enabling visitors to roam through an online exhibit complete with pictures of some of the artifacts being shown nationwide. Through this engaging Web site visitors will see how they will be able to visit museums of the future from their living rooms. You can take a virtual tour of the exhibit at http://web6.si.edu/virtus3d/home.html . To enjoy this tour, you will need a 100 MHz 486 or better, Win 95 (or Win 3.1 with 32 bit support), SVGA monitor with a resolution of 800x600 or better, 28.8k modem (or faster communications link), Netscape Navigator 2.0+ (32 bit), and Live3D (32 bit). Visit other areas of their site at http://www.si.edu.
The Smithsonian Institution is using a 150Mhz Pentium Pro processor based Web server, running Microsoft Windows NT. The server has 64 megabytes of RAM memory and a 2 gigabyte hard disk. The Smithsonian is attached to the Internet using a 10 megabit per second connection.
At http://www.intel.com/intel/museum/25anniv/index.htm , you can visit Intel's interactive celebration of the 25th anniversary of the microprocessor. From this web page you can launch a start-up company called Intel and create the microprocessor in "Interact with History;" meet high tech insiders who tell you how the microprocessor changed their lives in "Interviews;" and find fast facts about Intel's family of microprocessors from the 4004 chip to the Pentium® Pro processor in the "Hall of Fame."
What You'll See
The traveling exhibition is divided into the following 4 sections:
The Smithsonian Garden, an introductory area, explores the Institution's history, the National Zoological Park, the Tropical Research Institute, the Astrophysical Observatory, and the Environmental Research Center. Visitors enter America's Smithsonian through a 22-foot-high replica of the Castle into the Central Plaza to the main galleries.
The Discovering Gallery features specimens from the natural world and artifacts representing new technologies that expanded the frontiers of discovery like meteorites and minerals, insects and shells, Amelia Earhart's flight suit, Lewis and Clark's compass, Mercury Freedom 7 spacecraft, and the Wright Brother's "Vin Fiz" (the first airplane to fly across the U.S.).
The Imagining Gallery celebrates the imaginative creativity of artists and artisans, designers and architects, from America and around the world, including Chinese jades and bronzes, pre-Columbian American pieces, Iranian and Egyptian manuscripts, art from Africa and India, and more. The Star of Bombay sapphire and the Hooker starburst diamond ensemble are located near the Gallery's entrance.
The Remembering Gallery contains artifacts that commemorate momentous events, famous persons, and everyday life. A few of the items included are Abraham Lincoln's photograph, portraits of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, Edison's light bulb, Arthur Ashe's and Chris Evert's tennis rackets, Richard Petty's race car, and Dizzy Gillespie's trumpet.
Obtaining Passes
Hours of the exhibit are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, and the last visitors are admitted at 6 p.m.. Admission is free, but timed passes are required; children under four admitted without passes. Due to the popularity of the exhibition, the suggested visit length is 2 hours.
Up to 4 free, timed, same-day passes per person are available inside the Convention Center each day beginning at 9 a.m. When all passes for the day are distributed, the pass window will close. Passes may be gone by noon.
One to 20 free, timed, advance passes are available prior to the opening date for a $3.50 service charge per pass (+ state/local tax if applicable) charged to VISA, Discover, or MasterCard. Call Customer Service daily, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern time at 1-800-913-TOUR (8687). Passes must be ordered a minimum of five days in advance of the visit date. Passes ordered at least two weeks in advance of the visit will be mailed, and passes ordered less than two weeks in advance will be held at the "will call" window inside the Convention Center.
Free passes for school groups, Grades 5-8, may be obtained in advance. Fax a name, school name, school phone and fax numbers, and the number of people in the group (maximum 100) to: 1-202-633-8118 for tours Mon.-Thurs., 10 a.m. to 12 noon or 12 noon to 2 p.m.
A limited number of wheelchairs will be available at the First Aid office on a first-come, first-served basis. Visitors with disabilities or special needs may enter 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. to view the exhibition prior to the general public, regardless of the time printed on the pass.
There will be no docent-led tours of the exhibition, but an Interactive Audio Tour (hand-held computer with audio and text) will be available in English and Spanish, for an additional $3 to $5.
Beverly Rosenbaum is a HAL-PC member and can be reached via e-mail through the User Journal section of HALNet.
E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.
Back to the User Journal Home Page