Promoting and teaching “hard” science in an amusing way: the “Domus Archimedea” approach to Greek mathematics

Hard Sciences, and Mathematics in particular, are often abstract disciplines; our difficulties are both in learning and teaching them, and we need to explain concepts through visual examples, models, real objects’ manipulation. It is fundamental to find a good teaching strategy, and new multimedia tools can help us. The “Domus Archimedea” is an Interactive Science and Technology Museum dedicated to Archimedes di Siracusa (287 B.C. – 212 B.C.) and his work, and it will be located in Siracusa, Italy. A series of appealing interactive exhibits, movies and multimedia software on large screens and interactive kiosks, will guide visitors into the middle of Archimedes’ historical period and into the heart of his scientific work, making them discover and appreciate his great contribution to Science. Archimedes was a many-sided genius: besides the section of the engineering work ascribed to him (Archimedean screw or coclea, catapult, burning-glasses etc.), the Museum presents a section that shows his mathematical and physical work. This part includes methods to calculate the area and the volume of several plane and solid figures, foundations of hydrostatics and statics and the explanation of the principle of the lever. Archimedes was also one of the earliest known brain-teaser enthusiasts: the Archimedes' cattle problem (or the problema bovinum); the investigation about the number of grains of sand that the universe could contain, opportunity to introduce a system of counting based on the myriad that anticipated our numeral positional system and the exponential notation; the Stomachion, a dissection puzzle made of 14 pieces originally forming a square, which the Museum shows both as exhibit and video game. Archimedes’ interest was focused in particular in how many ways the pieces could be assembled to form a square, anticipating aspects of combinatorial analysis. In this talk we aim to show that an amusing approach, by means of innovative exhibits and interactive software, can bring people, and particularly young students, closer to hard sciences. Strategies, teaching; science