"COLE,GLENN (Non-HP-SantaClara,ex2)" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Alfredo follows with:
>
>>  BTW, if you have a chance to visit Firenze in Italy, go to the science
>>  museum (which, among other things, has one of Galileo's fingers on
>display).
>>  You will enjoy many amazing mathematical "tools" and "appliances".  There
>>  are many great museums throughout the world, but this little museum is a
>>  gem and, being little known, is not crowded at all (even though it is
>>  just around the corner from the over-crowded Galleria degli Uffizi :-)
>
>Drat.  I had the good fortune of taking a week-long class in Firenze in
>mid-June, but managed to miss this little museum (and a host of others).
>Alfredo, do you recall the little museum's name?

In this era of the Internet, you don't really want a name: You want
the URL, which I found -- in a couple of seconds -- via my Mac's
Sherlock 2:

http://galileo.imss.firenze.it/

You can see the Arno, the Ponte Vecchio, and the museum (which has 3 or
four stories).  On this page, the museum is interestingly highlighted :-)

I just took a virtual tour, looking for Galileo's finger (which caused
quite an impression on my kids) for curiosity's sake.  Check out
"Room IV - Galileo Galilei" and rotate around until you see a glass
cabinet between two windows (you will see an inclined plane on the
opposite wall, so keep rotating).  Then, zoom into the tall white object
on the upper shelf of the glass cabinet, a bit to the right of the wider
object which hangs from the wall just above that upper shelf (this, BTW,
is Galileo's [cracked] objective lens, which you may want to see also).

For the virtual tour, naturally, you need QuickTime 4 from Apple, which
is available as a free download for your Mac as well as for your PC :-)


>I had hoped to see much of Leonardo's work, given how much time he spent
>in Firenze.  All I found were three paintings at the Uffizi.  Word had it
>that most of his work was in Vinci, where he was born, despite the
>relatively little time he was there.

Vinci, even though it is a beautiful place, turns out to be a bit of
a disappointment in terms of "Leonardo's birth place".  IBM sponsored
the "redoing" ("undoing"?) of Leonardo's birth house and I drove through
the hills with all the excitement that the occasion deserved.  When I got
there, I realized that the house was a house "such as the one where
Leonardo might have been born in" and the reconstruction was based on
"reports and paintings from the period".  I then took the family to have
some Italian gelato in town and that was very tasty :-)

There may well be some other treasures there, but the kids were tired
by then :-(


>Ah well, there's a reason to return (as if one is needed ;) .

I love Italy.  There are several HP e3000 customers there who use Adager.
They get "executive" Adager corporate visits and I don't mind the VIP
treatment at all :-)


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  _______________
|               |
|               |
|            r  |  Alfredo                     [log in to unmask]
|          e    |                           http://www.adager.com
|        g      |  F. Alfredo Rego
|      a        |  Manager, R & D Labs
|    d          |  Adager Corporation
|  A            |  Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000            U.S.A.
|               |
|_______________|