A visual spectacle titled 'Science on a Sphere' marks the golden jubilee of Bangalore's Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum
The sharp intake of breath and "oohs" of the lady seated next to me would not have seemed out of place if we had been watching an action-packed thriller. But we happen to be in a darkened space at Bangalore's Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, not a cinema. But when you think of it, the exclamations are not all that incongruous - the half-an-hour spectacle called 'Science on a Sphere', where you get to see various planets and the sun just as you would if you were in space, is absolutely fascinating. Four projectors create moving images of the sun, the earth, other planets and their moons on a white sphere, 2 metres in diameter, at the centre of the room. The projection is done in a way that the images look "stitched" together and are very realistic. Apart from visuals of cloud formations and solar storms, there are also unique images that show the density of flights. While we only see an aircraft at a time in the sky, here you get a bird's eye view of clusters taking off and landing - there are some 5,000 flights over the US alone, at a given time, and the representation looks like a series of sparkly fireworks.
The 'Science on a Sphere' is a new addition and one of the most significant to the 50th year celebrations of the Visvesvaraya museum, kicked off last week by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman UR Rao. The museum was set up in 1965 to commemorate the contributions of legendary statesman and engineer Sir M Visvesvaraya and is located in the city centre on Kasturba Road. Don't let the Soviet-era facade fool you - with over a million visitors a year, the Museum might well be one of the most popular in the country, and even on a weekday morning, it is fairly crowded.
The other additions for the golden jubilee include a 'How Things Work' gallery and a 'Dinosaur Enclave'. While the 12-metre replica of a spinosaurus in the enclave does not look very convincing, the gallery with various displays of how machines work is engaging. One side showcases various simple machines such as the pulley system and gears. The other side shows how these are used in everyday objects like a ballpoint pen or a zipper. It is not just children who are intrigued by the displays - there are just as many adults turning the key to see how a lock works or fastening and unfastening the zipper. The other sections, like the 'Biotechnological Revolution' and 'Science for Children' also have curious visitors peering at the various exhibits.
"We are part of the International Council of Museums and came across the 'Science on a Sphere' at a conference abroad. We knew that it would be a suitable addition for the golden jubilee," says K G Kumar, director of the museum. Developed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration laboratory (NOAA) in Colorado, with images from NASA, this is the first such sphere in India. While the 450 images, or "data sets", being used now are from NOAA, there are plans to get Indian sets with the help of institutes like ISRO, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, the meteorological department and air traffic control centres.
Since the museum is also the southern headquarters of the National Council of Science Museums, plans for the the golden jubilee celebrations include a mathematics gallery that will be opened at the museum branch in Gulbarga, and a media centre in Tirunelveli, where visitors can see what goes on in television studios. There are also seminars, quizzes and lectures on the anvil, as well as more exhibits. Kumar becomes very animated when he talks about the planned exhibits but then stops himself. All he is willing to reveal is that these have to do with the Wright brothers. The museum already has a model of their first aircraft, built to scale, and which Kumar says is made with the same material the aviation pioneers used.
With a raft of activities to be rolled out, Kumar would like to see the footfall go up. "Personally, I think even a million a year is not enough. I want more people to come and see what we have here," he says.
