The Palais de la Découverte ("Discovery Palace") is a

science museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in mu ...

located in the

Grand Palais The Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées ( en, Great Palace of the Elysian Fields), commonly known as the Grand Palais (English: Great Palace), is a historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arro ...

, in the 8th arrondissement on Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. It is open daily except Monday; an admission fee is charged. The museum was created in 1937 by

Jean Baptiste Perrin Jean Baptiste Perrin (30 September 1870 – 17 April 1942) was a French physicist who, in his studies of the Brownian motion of minute particles suspended in liquids ( sedimentation equilibrium), verified Albert Einstein’s explanation of this ...

(awarded the

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

, 1926) during an international exhibition on "Arts and techniques in modern life". In 1938 the French government decided to convert the facility into a new museum, which now occupies 25,000 square metres within the west wing of the

(Palais d'Antin) built for the

Exposition Universelle (1900) The Exposition Universelle of 1900, better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition, was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from 14 April to 12 November 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate developmen ...

to designs by architect Albert-Félix-Théophile Thomas. In January 2010 the museum was merged with the

Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie The Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie ("City of Science and Industry", abbreviated la CSI) or simply CSI is the biggest science museum in Europe. Located in the Parc de la Villette in Paris, France, it is one of the three dozen French Cultur ...

under one institution is named universcience with two locations. Today the museum contains permanent exhibits for

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

, and

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

, featuring interactive experiments with commentaries by lecturers. It includes a Zeiss

planetarium A planetarium ( planetariums or ''planetaria'') is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetarium ...

with 15-metre dome.

Pi room

The museum contains a circular room known as the "pi room". On its wall is inscribed 707 digits of the number . The digits are large wooden characters attached to the dome-like ceiling. The digits were based on an 1873 calculation by English mathematician

William Shanks William Shanks (25 January 1812 – June 1882) was an English amateur mathematician. He is famous for his calculation of '' '' (pi) to 707 places in 1873, which was correct up to the first 527 places. The error was discovered in 1944 by D. F. Fe ...

, which included an error in the 528th digit. The error was detected in 1946 and corrected in 1949.Posamentier, Alfred, ''Pi: A Biography'', p. 118, Prometheus Books, 2004.

Footnotes

References

Universcience

Palais de la Découverte

Paris.org entry

* ttp://www.lefigaro.fr/sciences/20070705.FIG000000025_le_palais_de_la_decouverte_a_la_derive.html Figaro, "Le Palais de la découverte à la dérive", 14 October 2007 (French)

External links

Palais de la Découverte
– official site Museums in Paris Science museums in France Planetaria in France Buildings and structures in the 8th arrondissement of Paris {{France-stub

Pi room

See also

Footnotes

References

External links