Measuring Difference

New Exhibition Now Open Measuring Difference

Sundays–Fridays 11:00 am–4:00 pm through August 25, 2025

Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge

Measurements are human inventions. It is through measures that we learn to see difference, to compare the world. Using examples from across the Americas, this bilingual (Spanish and English) exhibit illustrates what—and who—was measured, and how.

Read a Washington Post story about Measuring Difference:

“Weights, measures and classification systems may seem like innocuous ways of taking stock of the world around us. But the tools are anything but objective, a new exhibition suggests.”