science

Ideum

Ideum is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ideum rather than just read about it. In short: Ideum is a company based in Corrales, New Mexico, United States that produces multitouch tables and walls, custom interactive exhibits, and custom hardware. The company was founded in 1999 by Jim Spadaccini, who created interactive exhibits for San Francisco's Exploratorium before becoming creative director at Ideum.

Key takeaways

Ideum belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ideum to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ideum from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Ideum is a company based in Corrales, New Mexico, United States that produces multitouch tables and walls, custom interactive exhibits, and custom hardware. The company was founded in 1999 by Jim Spadaccini, who created interactive exhibits for San Francisco's Exploratorium before becoming creative director at Ideum. With strong ties to the museum and informal science education fields, many of the company's products and services are targeted at museums and other public spaces. In 2015 and 2016, the company was listed on the Inc. 5000, list of the Fastest Growing Companies in the US. In 2017 and again in 2018, the company was honored as one of the "Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America" by Entrepreneur Magazine. The firm has a strong focus on developing interactive exhibits that seamlessly blend custom software, large scale hardware such as multitouch tables, and more recently new emerging technology such the use of fiducial markers and motion recognition. Ideum has also developed interactive video walls and has created state-of-the-art installations using projection mapping. Ideum's first product, MT-50 multitouch table garnered recognition for its high resolution and large surface. In 2011 and 2012, the company expanded its line to include three 55" multitouch tables, the Platform, Pro, and Pro Lab; two 46" tables, the Platform 46 full-sized and coffee tables; the Platform 32 coffee table; the 100" Pano table; and the 65" Presenter and Presenter 55 touch walls. Ideum has continued to update and expand this line. The company was first to offer many of these touch tables with 4K and with 3M touch technology. These multitouch displays support Ideum's proprietary software development framework, GestureWorks which is written in C++. The free Open Exhibits SDK allows for the development of multitouch multiuser applications in ActionScript and more recently in partnership with Omeka, development has begun in C++. Directed by Ideum, the Open Exhibits initiative was sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Ideum has designed exhibits for the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, NASA, the Adventure Science Center in Nashville, California Science Center, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Miami Science Museum, and the National Park Service among others.

References

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ideum

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ideum claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ideum before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ideum ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ideum

In research: Ideum appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ideum in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ideum is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Companies based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Display technology companies, Museum companies, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ideum outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Ideum in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ideum means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ideum out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ideum in simple terms?

Why does Ideum matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ideum?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ideum.