Photo courtesy Robert C. Lautman

© Larry Kirkland
Keck Center Lobby (south wall)

(click here to return to Larry Kirkland Keck Center Lobby page)

South wall:
Beginning on the far left (as one enters from Fifth Street), there are two drawings of maize – one from a pre-Columbian pot from Ancient Peru (ca. 2500 to 1800 BC) and another by a contemporary geneticist.

These represent a continuum of human invention spanning four centuries. This important New World plant that we know as corn, was produced by the careful breeding of plants by humans. It now feeds a large proportion of the world's population.

Images that follow on the same wall represent attempts to understand the universe– from Galileo's star map of 1610, which includes a detailed study of the moon, to the Lunar Rover designed in 1969 and used during the final three Apollo lunar missions of 1971 and 1972. Attached to the wall is a meteorite and a tidal rhythmite, a sedimentary rock whose stripes record changing tides hundreds of millions of years ago, providing a visual record of the moon's orbit around the earth. Other images illustrate the history of technology. From the Chinese abacus and Edison's 1880 design sketch of an incandescent light bulb, to the exploration of computer aided artificial intelligence and nanotechnology, inventors have developed tools that benefit society.

(click here to return to Larry Kirkland Keck Center Lobby page)

LOCATION:
Keck Center of the National Academies
500 Fifth Street, NW, Washington, DC
Open to the Public: M – F, 8:30 – 6.