Split | Second

Eight wall clocks hang beneath one digital clock that drives them, synchronised straight off the power grid. Each minute hand carries a strip of sandpaper, and every lap scrapes more of the numerals off its face until they're gone. That's Agustina Woodgate's National Times (Workout), from 2019.

It sits in the third of four sections, Earth, Mechanical, Electric and Atomic Time, which pair 340 years of instruments from MIT's collection with art. You start among sundials, which told a time that shifted with season and place, and end on material about the 1950s cesium clocks and the ytterbium optical lattice clocks MIT physicists are building now, which may redefine the length of a second.

Jonathon Keats's New England River Time is a clock run by five local rivers including the Charles: it falls behind in winter and catches up in summer. Officially, then, February in Boston runs slow. Entry is included in general admission ($20 adults, $10 ages 6 to 18), daily 10am to 5pm.