Name _______________________________________
Date_______
How Accurate is da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man?
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The Vitruvian Man is a world-renowned drawing created by Leonardo da Vinci around the
year 1487. Some of the proportions that are depicted in the drawing include:
 the length of a man's outspread arms (arm span) is equal to his height
 the distance from the hairline to the bottom of the chin is one-tenth of a man's
height the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin is oneeighth of a man's height
 the distance from the bottom of the neck to the hairline is one-sixth of a man's
height
 the maximum width of the shoulders is a quarter of a man's height
 the distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand is a quarter of a man's height
 the distance from the elbow to the armpit is one-eighth of a man's height
 the length of the hand is one-tenth of a man's height
 the distance from the bottom of the chin to the nose is one-third of the length of
the head
 the distance from the hairline to the eyebrows is one-third of the length of the face
 the length of the ear is one-third of the length of the face
 the length of a man's foot is one-sixth of his height
The relationship that I have been assigned to research is:
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
Your task is to research one of the above relationships by gathering the necessary
information from all of your classmates. After you have collected and recorded the
information from each of your classmates and yourself, you must enter these points into
an Excel spreadsheet. Highlight your data and create a X-Y scatter plot graph. Add a
trendline and find the slope of your graph. Do not forget to add an overall title to you
graph along with a label for the x and y axes. You are each responsible for attaching a
copy of your group’s graph and data table to your INDIVIDUAL Wikispace.
Lab Report
**Each group member is responsible for completing this sheet**
The relationship I am researching is: ________________________________________
Data Table Title: __________________________________________
Ratio Column A/Column B
Conclusion Questions:
1. After graphing your data points, what is the slope of your line?
2. Slope is defined as the rise (y) divided by the run (x). So if your slope is 1/10 that means
for every 1 centimeter change on the y-axis, the x-axis changes 10 centimeters. Use this
information to explain what your slope means as it applies to the relationship that you
researched. You may need to change your slope into a fraction.
3. How do your findings compare to da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man proportions? Do any of your
subjects have a individual ratio equal to da Vinci’s findings? Rewrite a statement
explaining your findings (i.e. I found the length of a person’s hand to be one-tenth his
height).