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Archimedes
is considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.
He was known as "the wise one," "the master"
and "the great geometer".
His works and inventions brought him fame that lasts to
this day.
Archimedes
was born in Syracuse, Sicily; the year of his birth is uncertain.
It was reported that he was seventy-five when he was killed
in 212 B.C., so it can be estimated that he was born around 287
B.C.
He is said to
have been born to poor humble parents but a family that had strong
relations with King Hieron II.
This contradiction shows that his upbringing remains uncertain.
There is some speculation that he had some relation with
the monarch. However,
one thing is certain. Based
on Archimedes account, his father, Phidias, was an astronomer. His father’s work mainly focused on estimations of the ratio
of the diameters of the sun and moon.
 Except
for his studies at Euclid's school in Alexandria, and short visit
to Egypt, he spent his entire life in Syracuse.
Archimedes proved to be a master at mathematics and spent
much of his time pondering new problems to solve; he often got
so involved in his work that he would forget to eat.
Due to the lack of the modern conveniences of blackboards
and paper, he used any available surface, from scribbles in the
dirt to ashes from a fire, to draw his geometric figures.
To give an example of how involved he was in his work;
after bathing and oiling himself, he would use his own body and
oil as a blackboard for calculations.
Archimedes
fame comes mostly from his relationship with Hiero, the king of
Syracuse, and his son Gelon.
Archimedes had close friendship with the monarch, maybe
due to a family relation. He seemed to have a hobby of solving the king's most complicated
problems. Once, the
king ordered a gold crown and gave the goldsmith the exact amount
of gold to make it. When the crown was finished, it had the correct
weight but the monarch questioned if some silver had been used
to dilute the gold. This was a question that was virtually impossible to verify
in that time; but a question that Archimedes could not refuse
to find an answer for.
One
day, when he entered his bathtub, he noticed that the amount of
water displaced in the tub was proportional the amount of his
body that was submerged.
Today this observation is known as “Archimedes' Principle”,
and it is this principle that would allow him to answer the question
at hand. When he
realized the implications of his discovery, he ran naked through
the streets shouting, "Eureka! Eureka!”
(I have found it!). The goldsmith was proven a fraud.
Archimedes
enjoyed studying the properties of levers and pulleys.
One of his most famous statements "Give me a lever
long enough, a place to stand on, and I can move the whole earth"
was based from his discovery that any given weight can be moved
by a given force with a lever. When King Hieron heard this claim, he challenged him.
Archimedes proved his discovery by moving a large ship
single-handed with a compound pulley. The weight of the ship was
such that all the Syracusans with combined strength could not
move it. After conceding to Archimedes, Heiron stated, “From this
day forth, Archimedes was to be believed in everything he might
say.”
Archimedes
also had many other inventions including a miniature planetarium
and the Archimedes' watering screw; a simple mechanical device
used to lift water and such light materials as grain or sand.
During the Punic War, the Romans often fell victim to Archimedes
'geometric engines of war'.
These inventions such as the use of mirrors to reflect
the suns rays, focused towards their ships they would catch.
Catapults would discharge showers of missiles through holes
in the fortress walls. Archimedes also used moveable poles, projected
beyond the walls, to pick up the ships like a crane, or dropped
weights on them. The Roman Commander, Marcellus, referred to him
as a 'Geometrical Briareus' who toyed and played with their ships.
It was said that "if they” (the Romans), “did but
see a piece of rope or wood projecting above the wall, they would
cry 'there it is again', fearing Archimedes was setting another
of this engines in motion.
They would turn and flee."
With
little success by sea, Marcellus was forced to lay siege to the
city, which fell after eight months.
Archimedes was unaware that city had been taken. While
drawing figures in the dust, a Roman soldier stepped on his work
and demanded he come with him. Archimedes yelled, "Don't
disturb my circles!"
Enraged the soldier pulled out his sword and slew him.
In
honor of Archimedes, the figure of a sphere inscribed inside a
cylinder with a 2:3 ratio between the two volumes was engraved
on his tombstone. The figure was the solution to the problem he
considered his greatest achievement.
In
modern times, he is known for his work in mathematics, mechanics,
and hydrostatics. In mathematics, he calculated the value
of pi to be between 3-10/71
and
3-1/7.
He
determined a mathematical exponential system to express extremely
large numbers. He
found that the volume of a sphere is two-thirds the volume of
a circumscribed cylinder. Also, in calculating the areas and volumes of various geometrical
figures, he applied the method of exhaustion, invented earlier
by Eudoxus
of Cnidus. However,
he carried the method much further, far enough in some cases to
anticipate the invention of the calculus.
Bibliography
“Amusing
Archimedes Anecdotes,” January 26, 2002 http://courses.educ.ksu.edu/EDEL470/MinorityScientist/Archimedes/AMUSING.HTM
“Archimedes,”
January 26, 2002, http://www.historychannel.com/
Bragg,
Melvyn. Garden, Ruth.
On the Giants’ Shoulders. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.,
1998. pp. 13-41.
Dijksterhuis,
E.J. Archimedes. Dutch: Ejnar Munksgaard Copenhagen, 1956. pp.
9-25.
Golba, Paul. “10.2.
Archimedes (287? -212 B.C.),” January 26, 2002
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