Set Tourism

Last week I was in Amsterdam for the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association 2013 conference.  The meeting was excellent, with an especially strong showing from the postgraduate and early career researchers this year, along with a fine brace of keynote speakers.  You can see the programme at this link.

The city was also of interest, as I had never visited before.  Amsterdam has a reputation for its liberal attitudes, soft-regulation and blind-eye policies around certain drugs and prostitution.  On my walking tour of the city I was informed that the main clients for both of these trades were sourced in Great Britain.  A casual head count certainly revealed a significant number of young men from that region moving about in threes.  Whether they were slaking their prurience or something else, I do not know.

This tour, along with a boat trip and the companionship of my wife who has visited a number of times, helped me to orient myself to the city.  I was then able to explore the elegant streets and canals, local niches and public space, as well as the Hermitage, Anne Frank's House and that of Rembrandt.  As we made our way about we noted that there were many museums:

Rijk Museum
Van Gogh Museum
Tulip Museum
Cheese Museum
Handbags and Purses Museum
Erotic Museum
Cannabis Museum
...

The addition of ... is a supposition on my part.  It seemed as if there was a museum on every corner as well as a museum for everything.  Indeed, there is even a museum in the airport, along with other opportunities afforded in the Netherlands (hastily snapped on my phone).

This growing list of museums became a source of amusement for us and we spent a lot of time coming up with possible museums, including:

Discarded Bicycle Museum
Fries and Mayonnaise Museum
Beer Museum (there is the Heineken Experience, but I am not sure that counts)
...

and finally the Museum Museum.

This last entry clarified for me the true intent of Amsterdam's city council.  They wished to teach the denizens and visitors about set theory.  The final museum would be the set that contained all other museums, including the possible museums conjured by my wife and I.  This set is potentially infinite given Amsterdam's commitment to have a museum for everything.  If there is a museum for everything then there is a bigger set called the Museum of Everything which will include the Museum Museum.  This hurts my concept of infinity and everything.  But I will leave that to another day. For now, suffice it to say, that what Amsterdam should really be known for is Set Tourism.  If this is so, I suspect logicians travel in threes.