Claude shannon loved to juggle. The visionary mathematician, whose theories laid the foundation for the modern digital age, wrote a theorem that describes the relative position of juggled balls and the juggler’s hands; he built a juggling robot with an Erector set; and on Sunday afternoons, he juggled with the MIT Juggling Club.
Juggling is usually associated with clowns, not engineers. But walk by Lobby 10 in the Infinite Corridor on any Sunday afternoon and you’ll see a handful of very unclownish people tossing beanbags, rings, or clubs in mesmerizing patterns. The MIT Juggling Club, which is open to people outside the school, attracts juggling hobbyists from all over Boston, and even a few regulars from neighboring states.
Arthur Lewbel ‘78, PhD ‘84, started the club when he came to MIT in 1975. Lewbel had taught himself to juggle as a teenager after reading a book about the art. When he got to MIT, the closest thing to a juggling club he could find was the unicycle club, so he showed up at one of its meetings and started juggling. Lewbel was on the leading edge of a trend: a few years after he graduated, there were more jugglers in the club than unicyclers. The unicycle club eventually disbanded, but the jugglers continued on. The club, which has met religiously every Sunday afternoon for 30 years, is now the oldest college juggling club in the country.
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