Countless Connecting Threads: MIT's History Revealed Through Its Most Evocative Objects

About this book

"These countless connecting threads woven into one indissoluble texture formthat ever-enlarging web which is the blended product of the worlds scientific and industrialactivity." -- William Barton Rogers 1860 Objects and Plan of an Institute ofTechnology Inspired by an exhibition of 150 objects created by the MITMuseum to mark MITs sesquicentennial this lavishly illustrated volume is a unique collection ofvisual and written meditations about the making and meaning of the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology. The story of MIT is more than a simple tale of a founders vision. It is greater thanthe sum of all the stories that have been or are yet to be told by the hundreds of thousands whohave a direct personal connection with the Institute. Yet with the assistance of the collectiveintelligence of the MIT community the Museum was able to capture some of those "countlessconnecting threads" -- from a towering module for the first real-time digital computer to thefamous Baker House Piano Drop. Part history part catalog part souvenir CountlessConnecting Threads invites readers to (re)discover through some of the Institutes mostevocative objects the essence of the vast and varied tapestry that is MIT.