Acropolis

For generations, the Parthenon has been celebrated as a masterpiece that appears straight because its builders subtly made it curved. According to a new analysis this widely accepted notion of the reason for the building's straight appearance fails the mathematical test. What the research disputes is not the fact that the building has different forms, but that its appearance was an intentional design trick. The argument can be traced back to the Roman author Vitruvius, who talked about Greek architecture several centuries after the Parthenon was finished. Vitruvius said that if the platform was horizontal, it would look as if it was sagging, so the builders elevated the middle section of the stylobate, which is the flat part of the