“I’m terrible at math anyway. » There are surely millions of us who have already uttered this sentence with fatalism. For some, the relationship with mathematics can even turn into an aversion. It is undoubtedly for them (but also for enthusiasts) that the first museum entirely devoted to mathematics opened at the end of last September at the Institut Henri-Poincaré (IHP) in the 5th arrondissement of Paris.
The idea of a place that opens mathematics to society had sprouted in the mind of Fields Medal winner and former MP, Cédric Villani, who directed the IHP from 2009 to 2017, a little more ago ten years old. And because 20 minutes, some also have small middle school traumas to exorcise, we went to visit this new temple of math. We tell you.
Understand the application of mathematics in all areas of life
The museum is located on the ground floor of a building whose floors house research spaces, “a way of bringing the general public into dialogue with the scientific community,” explains Sylvie Benzoni, mathematician and director of the IHP since 2018.
To begin this (re)discovery of mathematics, Sally Secaron, one of the museum’s three mediators, takes her day visitors to the small Jean Perrin auditorium, named after the 1926 Nobel Prize in physics, renamed the “Invent” space ( the museum has seven spaces). She lists examples of the use of mathematics in all fields: drawing maps in geography, imaging or predictive models of Covid-19 in health, etc. : “It’s a way of making people understand how mathematics is used and applied in everyday life. »
A museum for the general public from 4th grade to middle school
To make things even more concrete, the mediator continues in the “Connect” space and reveals to her visitors the “Metro Map” of mathematics. A large wall structure where the different areas of matter are connected by wires. Certain words like “stochastic processes”, “theory of relativity” or “quantum groups” would be enough to make non-specialists shudder with anxiety. But Sally Secaron uses the example of objects hung all around the map (a satellite, a soccer ball, a Rubik’s Cube, etc.) and a lot of pedagogy to help understand how the domains and sub-domains of mathematics explain the functioning of these objects. And everything becomes clearer… Well almost.
“The museum route was designed for middle school students from 4th grade onwards,” explains Sylvie Benzoni. Because it is the level from which students can understand certain concepts, but also because “it is the average level of French people in mathematics” specifies the mathematician, between what we have learned and what we have forgotten.
Almost no numbers
Everything in the museum is designed to bring the visitor closer to complex areas and subjects. Not by plunging it back into calculations, but by approaching the difficult ascent to knowledge and understanding from the most accessible side. Moreover, after a few dozen minutes immersed in the world of mathematics, visitors end up noticing that there are almost no, or very few, numbers in the museum. An aberration ? Not at all for Sylvie Benzoni: “In the collective imagination, mathematics is mainly about numbers. In reality, they have a place there, of course, but mathematics is much broader than that. »
The proof is in this space which deals with crowds and fluids, or how crowds move and change like a river according to Sally Secaron. “This allows us to understand how the corridors of Châtelet were designed, for example, to avoid crossings as much as possible and make user circulation more fluid. This also explains why, in a line, we go faster by taking the outside when there is a bend. »
A fun approach
Explanation through the application, the mediator invites visitors to use these theories on a touch screen table, mimicking a multitude of individuals who must be oriented in a space by modifying the configuration of the latter: “Imagine that there is a room that you need to evacuate. How would you arrange the obstacles to get people out as quickly as possible? » she said, handing us these obstacles to pose.
A lucidity far from an equation with three unknowns which makes visitors forget that they are looking at a mathematical problem and which we find in the formula whisperer who explains mathematical formulas to you with an ASMR voice .
A temporary exhibition on artificial intelligence
Not all visitors will be able to benefit from the knowledge of a mediator during their visit. But rest assured, there are numerous explanations and information sheets dotted throughout the different areas of the museum. “It is completely normal to experience difficulties on certain subjects,” comments Sylvie Benzoni, “when you reach certain limits, you have to make the necessary effort to get over the hump. Besides, when you make mathematics your profession, you spend a large part of your time not understanding anything. It is also this approach to understanding that is interesting. »
Although it does not come out with the level of a Nobel Prize or a Fields Medal, the museum allows visitors to reconcile themselves with mathematics. And those who remain, despite everything, reluctant, can console themselves in the space in the basement which offers a temporary exhibition (available until April 2024) on the evolution and applications of artificial intelligence. To know its history, and perhaps understand how a ChatGPT could, in the future, solve many of our problems (and perhaps pose others).