Where:
The Foundry
101 Rogers Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
Admission:
FREE
Categories:
History, Innovation, Lectures & Conferences, Tech
Event website:
https://www.longnowboston.org/events/insanely-curious
Why are things the way they are today? How did they come to be? How are they made?
The MIT Museum’s collection of over 1.5 million objects tells an unbelievable story of the history of science, technology, and engineering.
The modern museum evolved from the privately owned, 17th century, “cabinets of curiosity”: idiosyncratic collections of natural history wonders. Today’s museums identify and collect objects of significance, preserving both tangible and intangible assets, from electronic communications to AI models.
The MIT Museum formed around its objects, systematically accumulating them for more than half a century. Their aim is not simply to document the achievements of MIT, but to tell the story of all the endeavors that the people of the Institute have engaged with in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
Florencia Pierri, Associate Curator of Science and Technology at the MIT Museum, is a scholar of 16th and 17th-century science. Pierri also has hands-on experience exploring the MIT Museum’s artifacts, which have been made and used by people who changed lives and history.
Join us as Pierri tells the story of the objects, the people, and the transformations sparked by both.
Thursday, Jul 02, 2026 goes until 07/04
Boston
Friday, Jun 19, 2026 10:50a
New England Botanic Gardens at Tower Hill
Wednesday, Jun 17, 2026 6:00p
Boston Area Spanish Exchange (BASE)