21 June 2006
- 21 June 2006
Eratosthenes Festivity is an annual event organized by the the Planetarium Science Center (PSC) on 21 June every year since 2003; the day of Summer Solstice in Alexandria and Aswan. Eratosthenes, the Greek scientist and the third librarian of the Ancient Library of Alexandria, was the first scientist who measure the circumference of the Erath before 2000 years ago in these two cities.
Our celebration with Eratosthenes 2006 in Egypt was divided between Alexandria and Aswan, where some of our PSC staff traveled to Aswan in order to follow up what was going on there and inform us with the results. The festival lasted for two days, where in Alexandria; there was a series of lectures and discussions on measuring the Earth in ancient times, how the children could do it themselves, in addition to a workshop under the title of "Pocket Sundial".
In Aswan, there was a lecture entitled "How to Measure the Earth"; given by our PSC Senior Resident Astronomer Mr. Aymen Ibrahem, as well as a visit to the ancient well on the Elephantine Island thought to be visited by Eratosthenes while working on his theory.
More interestingly, there was a videoconference between the participants in Alexandria, Aswan and France at the end of the event in order to compare results. Measuring the Earth's Circumference, as well as the videoconference have all been taking place in Alexandria and Aswan at the same time.