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The Galileo Compass on the net

The Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence is publishing an interactive eLearning module called “The instruments of Science” (Gli strumenti della Scienza), to encourage a greater interest for the historic and scientific culture.

The first module is focused on the Galileo compass, an instrument which represents a formidable example of both mathematics and geometric knowledge.

The Galileo Compass web application is composed of three sections: “History”, “Explore” and “Simulation” with texts, images, historical documents, movies, 3D reconstructions and games.  This resource is aimed at students, who can use it both at school and at home; teacher can exploit it as well to find materials for their classes.

Historic details about the Galileo compass
In its time - the last decade of the XVI century – the compass was a sort of pocket-sized calculator used by merchants and militaries for many operations: from calculating to the square and cubic roots, from designing polygons to the measurement of areas and volumes, from the measurement of the gauges to the land surveying.

The Compass allows Galileo to develop his notoriety but, at the same time, to increase his income to support his large family and to go further on in his studies.

The Institute and Museum of the History of Science is member of Pencil and runs a Pencil Pilot project on “On-line access to history of science museums objects”.

For further information visit:
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/esplora/compasso/index.html

Contacts:
Jacopo Tonini,
Multimedia Development Manager
Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza
Tel. 00 39 055 2653167
e-mail:jacopo@imss.fi.it