The Arithmeum is a mathematics

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

owned by the Forschungsinstitut für Diskrete Mathematik (Research Institute for Discrete Mathematics) at the

University of Bonn The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...

. It was founded in 2008 by the director of the institute,

Bernhard Korte Bernhard H. Korte (3 November 1938 – 26 April 2025) was a German computer scientist, a professor at the University of Bonn and an expert in combinatorial optimization. Biography Korte earned his doctorate ( Doctor rerum naturalium) from the U ...

, who contributed his private collection of

calculating machine A mechanical calculator, or calculating machine, is a mechanical device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic automatically, or a simulation like an analog computer or a slide rule. Most mechanical calculators were comparable in s ...

s. The building's steel-glass facade – located at Lennéstrasse 2 – is meant to represent the "transparency of science".

Exhibitions

The permanent exhibit "Calculating in Olden and Modern Times" () shows the progression of mechanical calculating machines through 1,200 pieces. It holds the very large (4,000 pieces), IJzebrand Schuitema (1929–2013) 400 year collection of

slide rules A slide rule is a hand-operated mechanical calculator consisting of slidable rulers for conducting mathematical operations such as multiplication, division, exponents, roots, logarithms, and trigonometry. It is one of the simplest analog com ...

.http://www.rekeninstrumenten.nl/MIR/MIR%20Articles/MIR49%20p%209-13%20Schuitema%20Collection.pdf (English) There are also exhibits on very-large-scale integrated ( VLSI) logic chips, historical arithmetic books dating back to

Johannes Gutenberg Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg ( – 3 February 1468) was a German inventor and Artisan, craftsman who invented the movable type, movable-type printing press. Though movable type was already in use in East Asia, Gutenberg's inven ...

's times, and the relationship between art and science.

References

External links

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The Arithmeum's History
Museums in Bonn History of mathematics Science museums in Germany Mathematics museums {{Math-hist-stub