A Day at the Museum
I took advantage of a short trip to New York to visit the American Museum of Natural History. Now, before you yawn, this is the same museum that was featured in the comedy film Night at the Museum, starring Ben Stiller, a few years back. He is hired as the night watchman, not knowing that, due to a spell, all of the animals, statues, and dioramas come alive at night. “Where history comes alive” is the tagline of the movie. Luckily, I was in the company of an astrophysicist and a meteorologist, so I was looking forward to an enlightening visit. We entered the loggia where an introductory inscription quoting Theodore Roosevelt is displayed and then proceeded to the Asian mammals hall. The astrophysicist said he lived too much with dioramas and requested that we go immediately to the Ross Hall of Meteorites in the basement. Arriving at the first floor, we walked through the Spitzer Hall of Human Origins, with its skulls and jawbones, to the meteorites. I marveled at the meteorites a...