Archimedes (Download File)

Math, science, innovation, and brilliance are all words that are normally used to describe the type of man Archimedes of Syracuse was. His knowledge gave the world decades of innovation ahead of their time. He is the man known to have apparently exclaimed, “Eureka!” through the streets of Syracuse after a huge significant discovery. The theorems and principles that Archimedes had developed over the course of his life revolutionized warfare, science, and mathematics. Even to this day some of his inventions are widely used, and the concepts of several inventions have been utilized in a plethora of inventions throughout the centuries. Archimedes was a man of great value in the era he lived in, and continues to have a dramatic impact on the world.

A place called Syracuse, Sicily, what is now Italy, is the town where Archimedes was born into this world in 287 BC.¹ Little did the people of Syracuse know on that night that a legend amongst scientists, mathematicians, historians, and even future humanists was born. Archimedes was born into the family of a known mathematician and astronomer named Phidias.² The youthful years he endured on Syracuse were focused on developing his eventual, what Galileo describes as “divine,” mind towards mathematics and innovation.³ His knack for solving problems and thinking outside of the ordinary, and rather scientifically, developed as his early years were spent in Syracuse. Eventually he grew up and had a desire to learn more. His time spent in Syracuse was not wasted, and he was smart enough to expand his mind outside of the city and travel to Alexandria once he found out he didn’t have anything else to learn from his teachers in his home town.⁴ In Alexandria, Archimedes eventually worked alongside of the most well-known scholars who lived there named Euclid. Having a compilation of geometrical and mathematical papers called “The Elements,” Euclid was known for his mathematical mind.⁵ His time spent in Alexandria were not wasted, and eventually Archimedes would find himself traveling back home in hopes of using his newfound knowledge to refine his own mind and explore possibilities in invention.

When a person thinks of Archimedes they usually associate the term “Eureka!”, meaning in ancient Greek “I have found it!” with him.⁶ The narrative of that story revolves around his discovering of determining the volume of a substance, in this case particularly a crown of gold, for the King Hiero II.⁷ The legend goes to explain that his task was to determine whether or not the crown was made solely of gold for the king, and he had to do it without harming the crown itself. As he is sitting in the tub Archimedes notices the rising and falling of the water level, and determines that he could simply measure the displacement of the water by placing the crown’s mass compared to that of the mass of gold that was provided. When he figured it out, he was apparently running through the streets naked out of excitement screaming “Eureka!”⁸ While the legend itself is most likely a hyperbole of what actually happened, the task of finding out the crown’s purity in gold was accomplished, but probably through the means of what is known as hydrostatics on a more accurate scale where he could actually measure the levels of water.

The folklore of Archimedes does not end there, and these stories just go to prove how great the man’s mind was. People in his century, and many afterwards, could not explain scientifically what actually occurred in the man’s head. Instead they decided to make up stories about what actually happened to glorify the man beyond what he actually accomplished. Many people believe that these stories of how he defended the city of Syracuse with a laser were completely true, when actually the “heat ray” type weapon was never actually officially recorded in history.⁹

The siege of Syracuse did not start off as a siege. At first it was an assault, and Archimedes machines and inventions against the Roman army were so effective that they had to siege and conquer strategic points in order to trick the people of Syracuse that the entire city had fallen.¹⁰ This was of no fault to Archimedes inventions, which just goes to prove how effective they were and how much of an asset he was to everything revolving around that city. This siege was later described by scholars in entirely fictitious ways in order to explain the devastation Archimedes inventions caused the Roman fleet and their army. The idea of a “heat ray” type weapon surfaced in stories, and the “heat ray” of Archimedes is not considered a historical aspect of his actual life.¹¹

Archimedes met his fate at the siege of Syracus. Many people have speculated how he died, but it is widely known and accepted that he was accidentally cut down by a Roman foot soldier when he failed to identify himself.¹² This was a great loss to not only the people of Syracuse and the ancient Greek world, but also to the Romans. The Roman general who sieged Syracuse, General Marcellus, strictly ordered that Archimedes be taken alive and not killed due to his widely known knowledge around the Mediterranean at the time.¹³ The loss of the great mind of Archimedes is speculated to most likely held back innovation in the Mediterranean several centuries. The humanists of Galileo Galilei’s time revered Archimedes’ mathematical and scientific mind rather than the innovative part of the man.¹⁴

Archimedes made his mark in more than just the field of innovation and inventions, but also in the field of mathematics and science. Galileo admires him and called him “divine,” while a lot of his work actually was inspired by Archimedes work before him. He studied in Alexandria, where his mind developed and matured beyond even the books he learned from in order to progress the Greek world through engineering defensive machines for Syracuse and mathematical means of calculations and probabilities. The scholar was a man that even the Romans had wanted to acquire for their purposes, but his loyalty to his home of Syracuse eventually would him in the grave by a Roman soldier who was apparently too abrasive, or so the story is told.

Bibliography

Africa, Thomas W., “Archimedes through the Looking-Glass.” The Classical World 68. 5

(February 1975) 305-308

 

“Archimedes.” Wikipedia. Accessed December 1, 2014.

http://En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes

 

Google: Google Image:

 

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Aero_p044.shtml

 

Laird, W. R., “Archimedes among the Humanists,” Isis 82. 4 (December 1991) 628-638

 

“The Archimedes Palimpsest,” Archimedes Palimpsest. Accessed December 1, 2014.

http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/about/history/archimedes.php