Museum Tree

A hot, humid, hazy day, which I you'll sense in this image.  It's a sprawling tree providing wonderful shade directly in front of the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, which we visited today to see an exhibition of  photographs by Berenice Abbott called "Beautiful Physics". The show is small but striking, with ten images from the museum's portfolio of work she did for the Physical Science Study Committee in 1958-60. The PSSC developed a new approach to teaching high school physics--emphasizing experiments rather than learning equations. I actually took the very first version of that course in 1957-58 in my senior year; it was a wonderful experience, with a beloved science teacher. 

Berenice Abbott (1899-1991) was a major American photographer of the 20th century; she's best known for her photos of New York City, but she also had an enduring interest in science.  In 1950 she photographed my father's generator at MIT (the date is not 1958 as it appears on the web).