The Garden of Archimedes (Italian: ''Il Giardino Di Archimede'') is a museum for mathematics in

Florence, Italy Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

. It was founded on March 26, 2004 and opened its doors to the public on April 14 of that year. The mission of the museum is to enhance public understanding and perception of mathematics, to bring mathematics out of the shadows and into the limelight. It has been compared to the

National Museum of Mathematics The National Museum of Mathematics or MoMath is a museum dedicated to mathematics in Manhattan, New York City. It opened on December 15, 2012. It is located at 11 26th Street (Manhattan), East 26th Street between Fifth Avenue (Manhattan), Fifth ...

in New York City, the only museum in North America devoted to mathematics.

History

The Garden of Archimedes was set up in 2004 by a consortium of government and educational agencies. Current members of the consortium include: the

Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa The Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (commonly known in Italy as "la Normale") is a public university in Pisa and Florence, Tuscany, Italy, currently attended by about 600 undergraduate and postgraduate (PhD) students. It was founded in 1810 wi ...

, the

University of Florence The University of Florence (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'', UniFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled. History The first universi ...

, the

University of Pisa The University of Pisa ( it, Università di Pisa, UniPi), officially founded in 1343, is one of the oldest universities in Europe. History The Origins The University of Pisa was officially founded in 1343, although various scholars place ...

, the

University of Siena The University of Siena ( it, Università degli Studi di Siena, abbreviation: UNISI) in Siena, Tuscany, is one of the oldest and first publicly funded universities in Italy. Originally called ''Studium Senese'', the institution was founded in 1240 ...

, the

Italian Mathematical Union The Italian Mathematical Union ( it, Unione Matematica Italiana) is a mathematical society based in Italy. It was founded on December 7, 1922 by Luigi Bianchi, Vito Volterra, and most notably, Salvatore Pincherle, who became the Union's first Pr ...

, the

Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica Francesco Severi The Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica Francesco Severi, abbreviated as INdAM, is a government created non-profit research institution whose main purpose is to promote research in the field of mathematics and its applications and the diffusion ...

, the Consortium for the Promotion of Culture of Research and Studies at the University of

Avellino Avellino () is a town and ''comune'', capital of the province of Avellino in the Campania region of southern Italy. It is situated in a plain surrounded by mountains east of Naples and is an important hub on the road from Salerno to Benevento. ...

. The Consortium is based in Florence, at the Department of Mathematics "Ulisse Dini". The President of the consortium is the mathematician

Enrico Giusti Enrico Giusti (born Priverno, 1940), is an Italian mathematician mainly known for his contributions to the fields of calculus of variations, regularity theory of partial differential equations, minimal surfaces and history of mathematics. He ha ...

. One initiative of the Garden of Archimedes is to create a history of Mathematics on

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

and distribute it along with related supporting texts.

Sections

Inspired by museums such at The Exploratorium in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

the Garden of Archimedes is packed with hands-on exhibits and is popular with both adults and children. The museum is divided into different sections or exhibitions, corresponding to different ways of discovering mathematics:The Garden of Archimedes in Florence: What to see
/ref> Beyond compasses: the geometry of curves explores the mathematics concealed in everyday objects. Pythagoras and his theorem focuses on puzzles and play inspired by the seminal theorem. A bridge over the Mediterranean is a historical exhibition focusing on

Leonardo Fibonacci Fibonacci (; also , ; – ), also known as Leonardo Bonacci, Leonardo of Pisa, or Leonardo Bigollo Pisano ('Leonardo the Traveller from Pisa'), was an Italian mathematician from the Republic of Pisa, considered to be "the most talented Western ...

and his

Liber Abaci ''Liber Abaci'' (also spelled as ''Liber Abbaci''; "The Book of Calculation") is a historic 1202 Latin manuscript on arithmetic by Leonardo of Pisa, posthumously known as Fibonacci. ''Liber Abaci'' was among the first Western books to describe ...

with emphasis on how mathematics from the Islamic world was reintroduced to Medieval Europe. Helping Nature: from Galileo's Mechanics to everyday life is an interactive exhibit showing how Galileo used mathematics to reveal the working of simple machines. Weapons of mass education features mathematically based games and puzzles. Other historical sections include A short history of calculus, A short history of trigonometry, Ancient mathematics through stamps, and Pink Numbers – Women and Mathematics.

References

External links

Official website

Playing with Mathematics at ''Il Giardino di Archimede''
by Enrico Giusti {{DEFAULTSORT:Archimede's Garden Mathematics museums 2004 establishments in Italy Museums in Florence Science museums in Italy Buildings and structures in Florence