Sat 23.Apr.2016
Valencia, Spain
I never did go inside the Valencia Musum of Sciences. Maybe next time.
A stroll through the
grounds provides lots of eye-play, and camera-play too.
The sweeping pylon of a bridge across the river park
lets you know you at at the
Museum complex.
A huge non-reflecting pool would be boring if it weren't for the tiled botton.
The sidewalk outside is lined with these blue mouth-like ovals.
Some of the blue mouths turn out to be the entrances to the grounds.
The embankment (levee?) between sidewalk and grounds is topped with a palm-lined boulevard.
A little terrestrial astronomy plaza.
Far Side
Near Side
This globe is positioned so that it polar axis aligns with Earth's, and the meridian of Valencia
is vertical. The main line of pegs ("gnomons") shows the meridian. The text points out that the shadows
of the pegs are of unequal lengths, because the Earth is not flat. It goes on to explain that the
size of the Earth can be calculated by measuring the length of the shadows of poles in different places
in the world.
Eratosthenes of Cyene first did this around 200 B.C.
Intermission
We'll continue around ths loopy modernist architecture next page. But for this evening,
it is back into the town center for a café cortado on Plaça Redonda,
which gains something in translation as Round Square.