American Prometheus

by Kai Bird

Robert would have been proud of Frank. Everything the two brothers had learned in two lives devoted to science, art and politics was brought together in the Exploratorium. “The whole point of the Exploratorium,” Frank said, “is to make it possible for people to believe they can understand the world around them. I think a lot of people have given up trying to comprehend things, and when they give up with the physical world, they give up with the social and political world as well. If we give up trying to understand things, I think we’ll all be sunk.” If Frank ran his Exploratorium as a “benevolent despot” until his death in 1985, it was always with the egalitarian notion that “human understanding will cease to be an instrument of power . . . for the benefit of a few, and will instead become a source of empowerment and pleasure to all.”