"Multimedia software as support for a self-explaining visit path in science museum: the Domus Archimedea experience".

The "Domus Archimedea" project concerns the set-up of a Science and Technological Interactive Museum in Siracusa (Italy, Sicilia region) which is dedicated to the Greek mathematician Archimedes, who was born and died in this town (287 B.C. -212 B.C.). Different themes representing the several scientific branches treated by Archimedes are represented by means of amazing and original interactive exhibits: - war and peace machines (burning-glasses, catapults, screw pump etc.) attributed to Greek mathematician; - mathematics and geometry (surface and volume measures, "pi-Greek" calculation, geometrical curves, etc); - statics and hydrostatics (floatation of bodies, buoyancy of Archimedes, principle of lever, etc.) Audiovisual support material is especially studied in order to allow visitors to get a self explaining tour of the museum: general information about exhibits, historical news, mathematical demonstrations, and sources review are supplied by means of video and multimedia material, very rich in picture, diagrams and animations, structured in different deepening levels. The multimedia software also provides visual examples, interactive models and virtual objects manipulation in a simple and very powerful way. Such material has been realized by an expert team in science communication, in collaboration with some of the major Archimedes's experts in the world, as mathematical historians and researchers of Baltimora University (USA) and Pisa University (Italy).