[IAEP] [NaturalMath] KIds from around the world measuring the Circumference of the Earth

[Alan Kay]

But consider a flat Earth and a low small sun directly over the well. This will yield exactly Eratosthenes' result. The key here, which I've never seen mentioned in any books for children, is that the Greeks had to have a very good set of reasons for thinking the Earth round and the sun large enough and far enough away (and they did).

I gave a talk on how they did this in the Kyoto Prize lecture followups in San Diego in 2005. Aristarchus was one of several key figures.

The shame of it is that for both math and science learning, the important heuristic of trying to identify all the possible cases for a result is never encountered by the children (or most adults) who have read about Eratosthenes.

Cheers,

Alan




>________________________________
>From: Steve Thomas <sthomas1 at gosargon.com>
>To: naturalmath at googlegroups.com; iaep <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>; squeakland <squeakland at squeakland.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 9:06 PM
>Subject: [NaturalMath] KIds from around the world measuring the Circumference of the Earth
>
>
>The Goal of the Noon Day Project is to have students measure the circumference of the earth using a method that was first used by Eratosthenes over 2000 years ago.
>Students at various sites around the world will measure shadows cast by a meter stick and compare their results.
>From this data students will be able to calculate the circumference of the earth. Click here to get to their site and register.
>
>
>Watch the Carl Sagan video, its a treat.
>
>
>Thanks to Ihor Charischak for pointing this out.
>
>
>Stephen  -- 
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