Green's Windmill & Science Centre: Museum Review

It's not immediately obvious where Green's Windmill and Science Centre is in relation to the signposted car park, which is shared with a nursery school. It might seem strange that an entire windmill can hide behind a small school, but it took a bit of wandering before realising that there's a path to the side of the school. Once on this path the windmill came into view, the flaking paint of its white dome hinting at its age and modern usage.

Green's Windmill & Science Centre by T. Briggs is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

It's one of those small local museums that's run by love rather than money, an observation supported by the Green's Windmill Trust plea for donations of time, money or skills to help in its mission to keep the sails turning and promote the reputation of George Green. The trust began as a small band of enthusiasts aiming to preserve a piece of local heritage, becoming a registered charity in 2012.

The site has two main features. The first is the windmill itself, which the trust keeps in working order. Unfortunately at the time of our visit the sails were out of operation for essential maintenance, but the mill's usual functionality is as clear from signage on every level that warns visitors that the machinery could start up at any time as it is from the flour dust on the floor. Perhaps the most obvious clue that this is (usually) a working mill is the fruits of its labour^[1] on sale in the gift shop.

The Windmill

Visitors can enter the windmill and explore every floor except the windmill's movable dome. Accessibility is very limited, but this is to be expected given the nature of the building and I can't see how this could be avoided: stairs steep enough to be almost ladders and regular opportunities to bump your head abound.

Each floor has one or two panels that help visitors to orient themselves within the building and to explain how the machinery on that floor contributes to the milling process. The interpretation was minimal but this worked for me as it helped to put what I was seeing in context without detracting from the tangible atmosphere of a piece of mechanical heritage still in use after 200 years. On one floor, a screen ties it all together nicely with a video that shows the operation of each level from top to bottom.

The windmill was built by Nottingham baker George Green in 1807 and inherited by his son (also George) in 1829. The younger George Green's achievements lie less in milling and baking and more in mathematics, which is where my main interest lay in visiting the site and forms the focus of the second feature.

The Science Centre

The windmill can be seen from some distance away (unless you're in the car park, of course) and unsurprisingly dominates the relatively small site, but the next thing you might notice as you enter are the mathematical symbols that decorate the windows of a smallish (but much more accessible) building that contains the gift shop and science centre. These symbols at first seem like they may be random pseudo-mathematical nonsense, but they're actually bits of an equation taken from a line of working in Green's self-published 1828 paper An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism^[2]. I chalked this front-and-centre display of mathematical notation up as a win for mathematical positivity: very few museums even recognise the role of maths in their stories let alone choose to present any of it for public consumption. On entering the science centre the full equation is visible, repeated in bright orange text on a black banner that stretches around almost the entire exhibition:

\[ \int{d \sigma V} \frac{dU}{dw} + \int{dxdydzV \delta U} = \int{d \sigma U} \frac{dV}{dw} + \int{dxdydzU \delta V} \]

That the science centre does not shy away from displaying this equation^[3] prominently on the inside of the exhibition is another small win for mathematical positivity and I would encourage more museums to unashamedly feature mathematical notation in their public presentations. I was disappointed, however, that there was no attempt to provide any interpretation of it. It's a seemingly random selection from the middle of Green's working and feels like it's there merely for decoration. I'm not lamenting the lack of a full discussion of his 80-page essay - which would be unrealistic for a general audience - but some discussion around what some of the symbols mean or the associated work's contribution to subsequent mathematical and scientific understanding would be really helpful for visitors, many of whom will no doubt see themselves as "non-mathematicians".

The science centre's single exhibition is stocked with a variety of engaging interactive activities, including prisms, mirrors, a three-way magnetic pendulum and a demonstration of the human body's ability to generate electricity. These are wonderfully apt given that Green's work represented the first mathematical theory connecting electricity and magnetism and fed into later developments by much better-known mathematicians such as James Clerk Maxwell. Again, though, the interpretation required to join up the concepts explored in the exhibition with either the history or function of mathematics was completely absent, another missed opportunity to contextualise and highlight the relevance of a small area of mathematics for general audiences.

Another potential but as yet unrealised opportunity for the site would be to delve deeper into George Green himself: Largely self-taught (he only experienced a year of formal education, and that was around the age of 9 or 10), Green's development as a mathematician was not the result of a privileged upbringing, private schooling and an army of expensive tutors; instead it came from finding a personal interest in the subject and undertaking independent study fuelled by a library membership and encouragement from family, friends and peers. His story could be an antidote to many of the more toxic misconceptions about what is required to consider oneself a mathematician.

If this all sounds like a complaint, it isn't: Green's Windmill and Science Centre at least mentions mathematics in a positive light and therefore stands head and shoulders above the vast majority of British museums on this front. My observations are intended not to criticise but to highlight the science centre's provision of some small respite from the UK's national sport of maths-bashing, and how little it would have to do to actively promote a little positivity towards the subject^[4].

School Visits

Green's Windmill and Science Centre has a schools programme but I did not experience this or talk to anyone about it whilst on site. They currently offer two sessions, aimed at Nursery and Key Stage 1 students. Unfortunately neither have explicit mathematical content, though both include opportunities to visit the science centre.

The site's stories, particularly that of George Green, hold massive potential for developing engaging educational activities with mathematics at their root for students at all levels and I hope that somewhere along the line the Trust get the time and funding to explore this.

In Conclusion

It's not a huge site - we went through the whole lot with a fine-toothed comb and it took us about 2 hours - but it is free to visit and just outside Nottingham City Centre so very close to the many and varied heritage attractions available there. There's a car park right outside, but we walked to it in about half an hour from the Robin Hood statue next to Nottingham Castle. There's no cafe, but you can order a hot drink to take away from the gift shop, which also sells some of the usual fayre plus bags of flour milled at the site and books of George Green's mathematical work. Just outside the site there's a children's play area featuring some science/maths themed play equipment.

Green's Windmill and Science Centre is a small but interesting and unusual heritage site that's well worth a visit, especially as part of a city break. It offers a rare, if small, glimpse of the place of mathematics in British heritage and I hope that this aspect continues to be developed.

Footnotes:

1. Flour, in case you weren't sure.  We bought a bag and will report back on the resulting bread, if anyone's interested! [back]
2. Printed copies are available in the gift shop on site, but the paper has been digitised and is available to read for free at play.google.com/books/reader?id=GwYXAAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PP8&hl=en_GB  [back]
3. It can be found on page 10 of the reference linked in footnote 2. [back]
4. The former should - and could very easily - be done by every museum I've ever set foot in, but most choose not to. The latter is also true for all of those museums. [back]