home The Death of Distance: from Pythagoras to Galileo
An event at the Dome, November 29th, 2000

Ancient Egyptians

A rope compass

Please enable Java for an interactive construction (with Cinderella).

Move the red points to try to form the "rope" into a triangle. The lengths of parts of the rope can be adjusted. Make the yellow part 3, the green part 4 and the blue part 5. Now form a triangle. What angle do the yellow and green parts make?