History in a Museum

I was curious about the Museum of Natural History after watching `Night at the Museum,' a movie about a divorced father taking up a job as a night watchman at the MNH in an attempt to stabilize his life. Things get spiced up at night when everything comes to life (including the dinosaurs, Roosevelt etc. etc.) because of the magical powers of an old,Egyptian artifact.

Coming back to the museum where the movie was filmed- it is, in one word, amazing! A must-see if you're in NYC. We packed in as much as possible in one hour and I have to go back to explore it at properly, but in the meanwhile, here are some pictures:

Math boo-boo

So when my professor asked me to read the `Know This' about combinations and permutations in class I was startled to see exclamation marks all over the page. At first I wondered if they are there to emphasize a number/letter and was tempted to read it with the appropriate inflections. As impressed as I was to find out that Math actually has an emotional side I played it safe, reading it as: "N exclamation and 2 exclamation blah, blah, blah..."

For ten minutes, no one laughed, corrected me or interrupted. When I was done my prof. explained in his sing song voice that "actually, in mathematics, the exclamation mark is called a factorial and has a value etc. etc."

I'm still looking for a place to bury my head in after that fiasco(: