I heard someone comment that they prefer the Natural History Museum next door on my way inside the Science Museum. Who doesn't, after all? In comparison to the nearby dinosaur cathedral, this location fails to convey the enthusiasm of science.

It ranges from static exhibits to interactive playgrounds. The playgrounds are crowded, yet the galleries are often vacant. Surely there must be a happy medium. This exploration of ancient Greek civilization yields no results.

An ancient Greece exhibition at the Science Museum seemed like an opportunity to learn more about famous ancient Greek scientists like Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Democritus, Aristotle, Euclid, and Archimedes, as well as what they believed and why they thought it.

However, you'd be better off looking for Atlantis (the mythological island originally mentioned by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato) than expecting answers in this very little interaction with the old world. It doesn't take Greek science seriously, and it doesn't bring any of the great minds of the past to life. Archimedes in his bath, exclaiming "Eureka!" is obviously too much for us to bear. Atoms, which Democritus carelessly said are the building blocks of everything, may astound us.

Aristotle, the scholar and philosopher whose works have survived the test of time and whose impact has spanned millennia, is just cited on several varieties of fish next to a display of plates depicting aquatic animals.

In fact, the whole display is designed to seem like a tourism advertisement. The Aegean is evoked by the deep blue walls. A marble statue of Hermes has had its once-smooth body eaten away by sea creatures.

It is a ruin as a classical relic, yet it is surprisingly captivating as a Mediterranean evocation — calamari on the port front and swimming under temple-topped hills. But it only has a scientific link since it came from the Antikythera shipwreck, which also held the world's oldest geared mechanism. The machine isn't here, and the statue isn't a suitable substitute.

Another, much better maintained statue is accompanied by a wall writing explaining how the ancient Greeks saw human beauty as a mathematical issue. Yes, of course. This is a broad topic that runs across all of ancient culture.

You could spend all day researching everything, from the sculptor Polykleitos' canon of ideal human proportions to Leonardo da Vinci's depiction Vitruvian Man. Instead, we receive a single statue and a brief explanation.

After that, there's a case of medical devices and a brief mention of Hippocrates. Musical instruments demonstrate Pythagoras' idea of harmonic frequencies in a very insufficient manner - why not expand on this? At the very least, there should be more of anything.

It's only at the finish that things start to become intriguing. A bronze gear-driven mechanical calendar, produced in ancient Byzantium, is on display. It looks a lot like the Antikythera machine, which we finally get to view... but only in a short film. You could simply remain at home and look it up on the internet. However, one really extraordinary relic of ancient Greek science is on display: a silver celestial globe discovered near Lake Van in Turkey between 300 and 100 BC.

This gleaming relic exemplifies both the limits and brilliance of Greek science. On the one hand, it is covered with constellation pictures, which represent a mystical, astrological attitude toward the night sky.

This, on the other hand, is a globe: the ancient Greeks understood that the Earth was a spherical. Flat-Earthers are a new breed of moron. That is why, in order to preserve us from online stupidity and anti-vaxxing antediluvians, we need improved scientific education. You won't find it here, however.

I've seen more interesting Greek archaeological exhibitions in Mediterranean hotel lobbies and learnt more about Heraclitus' world while eating a gyros. This is only a preamble to nothing. It is, after all, a Greek tragedy.

Thanks to Jonathan Jones at The Guardian whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.