The cosmos are a great unifier. No matter where we are on the Earth, we can look up at the night sky to view the same celestial bodies that our earliest ancestors once saw. We have used the movements of the heavens to mark the passage of time and to craft shared mythologies that help to explain our purpose on this planet. Our present understanding of the universe exists thanks to the insatiable curiosity and relentless ingenuity of a series of individuals who built upon each others’ discoveries — collaborators across space and time.
The materials in this exhibition represent our ever-evolving understanding of the heavens. By creating books and manuscripts - from medieval treatises, to cornerstones of the Scientific Revolution, to handwritten mathematical calculations - the thinkers of the past have left behind evidence of their efforts to explain the unknown. With each of these innovations, we move closer to the horizon of understanding. And yet, just as the edge of the world always manages to evade us, so our threshold for scientific discovery continues to shift and expand.
Join us to explore our Receding Horizons, on exhibit from January 22 to July 20, 2024.