Working with Atlas Workshops, Lawrenceville students are invited to explore the world of the exact sciences according to the ancients! The classical Greek poleis built upon the mathematical and astronomical edifice of earlier civilizations and added their own novel achievements. As we travel around Greece, we will read excerpts and solve problems from Euclid’s Elements, the “first geometry book” and the historical keystone of deductive mathematics. We will explore museums that house mechanical wonders like the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient handheld tellurian and astronomical calculator, and discuss the theories underlying our modern reconstructions of its gearbox. We will read translated Ancient Greek texts on the topics of syzygies, pipe organs, and mechanical robots. In addition to Greece’s historical importance in the sciences, we will appreciate the Greece of today for its food, its music and dance, and its modern inhabitants. If you are interested in the history of mathematics and its connections to harmonics, engineering, and the stars, then join us in Greece!

Our journey will first take us to the small coastal town of Nafplio, nestled between its fishing docks and a Venetian fortress atop a hill. Throughout the trip, we will visit sites quintessential to Greek history and cultural identity, such as Mycenae’s temple complex and beehive tomb, as well as the acoustically masterful Theater of Epidaurus. An overnight ferry ride will bring us to Crete, where we will learn about rural village life, meet a local math teacher, visit the Minoan temple complex at Knossos, and see the enigmatic Phaistos Disc. We will end our visit in Athens, the historical home of numerous astronomers and philosophers. In addition to the locations where Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lyceum, and Meton’s astronomical observatory (the oldest known) once stood, we will see Andronicus of Cyrrhus’s “Tower of the Winds” horologion, the Antikythera mechanism, and numerous reconstructions of classical Greek automata.