Experience the Exploratorium. Let your curiosity roam free through hundreds of exhibits in our six spacious indoor and outdoor galleries at Pier 15, San Francisco.

The distribution of the mass of an object determines the position of its center of gravity, its angular momentum, and your ability to balance it. Place a lump of clay about the size of your fist ...

The pneumatic tire and the chain drive, followed by the development of gears, revolutionized bicycling in the later 1800s. In the last fifteen years, there has been a revolution of sorts in the ...

Gelatin can do much more than just wiggle and jiggle. Gelatin can be used for much more than a sweet treat. It can also act as a smoked lens—which allows you to view total internal reflection—or as a ...

You’ve probably seen an ice skater spinning on the tip of one skate suddenly start to spin dramatically faster. A diver or gymnast may also suddenly flip or twist much faster. This speeded-up rotation ...

See yourself as others see you in this cylindrical mirror. A flat mirror will always reflect an image that's right side up and reversed right to left. A cylindrical mirror can produce images that are ...

When we think about objects that respond to magnets, fruit usually doesn't come to mind. Watch a rare-earth magnet repel a grape and discover different kinds of magnetism. A note on magnets: Only ...

Gravity doesn’t care if you trip. Density columns have many layers of liquids that sit on top of each other, but if you accidentally mix them up, most will settle into just two layers. You can shake ...

Even plants have their favorite colors. Photosynthesis requires light, but plants don’t use all the colors that make up white light. Use a spectroscope to explore the absorption and transmission of ...

With polarized light, you can make a stained glass window without glass. Using transparent tape and polarizing material, you can make and project beautifully colored patterns reminiscent of abstract ...

Hone your electrostatic levitation skills and fly some tinsel. Next time you’re in the vicinity of a Christmas tree, impress your friends and family with a little levitation. By experimenting with ...

Make a truth teller for light. Turn an old CD into a spectroscope to analyze light—you may be surprised by what you see. Try pointing your CD spectroscope at the fluorescent light in your room, sunlit ...