ArchimedesArchimedesArchimedes was a Greek mathematician andscientist.
He was born in Syracuse, Sicily in the year 287 B. C. He waseducated in Alexandria, Egypt. Due to the lack of information about Greekmathematics, many Greek mathematicians and their works are hardly known. Archimedes is the exception.
Archimedes was very preoccupied with mathematics. For instance, he often forgot to eat and bathe because of his always wantedto solve problems. He found areas and volumes of spheres,cylinders and plain shapes. He showed that the volume of a sphere is two-thirdsof the volume of the smallest cylinder that can contain the sphere.
Archimedeswas so proud of this concept that he requested that a cylinder encloseda sphere, with an explanation of this concept, be engraved on his grave. Archimedes also gave a method for approximating pi. He was able to estimatethe value of pi between 3 10/71 and 3 1/7. Math wasn’t as sophisticatedenough to find out the exact pi (3. 14).
Archimedes was finding square rootsand he found a method based on the Greek myriad for representing numbersas large as 1 followed by 80 million billion zeros. One of Archimedes accomplishments was hiscreation of the lever and pulley system. Archimedes proved his theory ofthe lever and pulley to the king by moving a ship, of the royal fleet,back into the ocean. Then, Archimedes moved the ship into the sea withonly a few movements of his hand, which caused a lever and pulley deviceto move the ship. This story has become famous because Archimedes said,”Give me a place to stand on and I will move the earth.
Another inventionhe invented was the Archimedean screw. This machine was built for raisingwater to highland areas in Egypt that could not receive water directlyfrom the Nile River. This device is still used today for irrigation purposeseven is some countries today. The most famous story of Archimedes lifeinvolves the discovery of Archimedes’ Principle. The story begins whenKing Hieron asking a goldsmith to construct a gold wreath to the immortalgods.
After some time, the king came to suspect that the wreath was notpure gold but rather filled with silver. In order to end his suspicion,the king asked Archimedes to determine whether the wreath was pure goldor filled with gold without destroying it. Archimedes agreed to try tosolve the king’s problem. Then one day, while he was taking a bath, Archimedesnoticed that the water level rose in the bath as he entered the water. Archimedes was so excited by this discovery that he jumped out of his bathand ran naked through the streets yelling, “Eureka, Eureka!!” meaning,I have found it.
Archimedes had discovered that a body immersed in a fluiddisplaces its weight of fluid. This principle in turn helped Archimedesprove that the gold wreath was not solid gold. Archimedes was probably most famous duringthe time he lived because he developed techniques defenses for Syracuseagainst the Romans. Syracuse was able to hold off the invasion for threeyears due to Archimedes’s inventions. He invented catapults, which hurledblocks of stone, and cranes, which dropped large stones on approachingships.
Also, he developed scaling ladders, which helped soldiers climbover enemy walls. Archimedes can use mirrors to reflect sunlight on theadversarial ships burning them. The Romans finally invaded Syracuse andovertook the city Archimedes was drawing circles in the dirt. When a soldiercommanded Archimedes to surrender, Archimedes instead drew his sword andtold the soldier that he wanted to finish the proof he was working on beforesurrendering. The soldier became angry and killed Archimedes. This showsthat Archimedes was so committed to his expertise that he took the chanceto dying in order to work on his last problem.
Archimedes was so thoughtfulwith the study of math, and because of it, it led to many important discoveriesand principles for us today. What helped me the most were encyclopedias,books and the Internet. I think I got enough information to basically pointout the general account of it. I can’t really think of anything I can dodifferently.
I learned that Archimedes was a very significant man of histime that was perfected pi, his principles and his inventions. He was farbeyond any man’s thinking capabilities.
