Having an exhibition on mathematics may seem unattractive, but the one at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni seems to have what it takes to bring interest in numbers to the general public. For almost eight months, in via Nazionale it will be possible to attend the new exhibition “Numeri. All that matters, from zero to infinity”, curated by Claudio Bartocci and under the scientific supervision of Luigi Civalleri.
The exhibition consists of interactive installations, audio, video, exhibits. Among the most interesting materials, a model of the brain stands out where the areas that come into operation when we count are highlighted. Among the most precious historical finds, the Ishango bone, which with more than twenty thousand years of history behind it, turns out to be one of the first examples of numerical registration of a human hand. Then there is one of the nine models in the world of Pascalina, a seventeenth-century mechanical calculator. And again, the manuscript of the Geometric Works of Archimedes, two Babylonian tablets from the Louvre, and a model of Enigma, a device used by the Germans in World War II to send encrypted messages.
Continuing the journey among various curiosities and historical finds of inestimable value for mathematical enthusiasts, we arrive at the last section of the exhibition which closes the itinerary with a very special installation showing updated data in real time on all human activities on earth. How many children are born, how many people die, how many get married and how many travel, how much they buy and how much they consume. The moving photograph of a world made up of people, but read in numbers, as significant as they are honest. The moral, once you go down the steps on via Nazionale, becomes clear: the numbers describe life, which is made up of more or less happy events.
