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Archimedes was the ancient Greek inventor and mathematician who is remembered for being
one of the greatest minds in all of human history.
His theorems became laws of physics, and his equations became essential for future generations
of scientists and engineers.
While his great passion in life was the study geometry, Archimedes also used his mind to
invent weapons of war that successfully defended the city of Syracuse from Roman invaders.
On today’s Biographic, we tell the story of a man whose legacy has lasted thousands
of years.
A Life of Academic Achievement
Archimedes was born in 287 BC in the city of Syracuse, which is located on the east
coast of the island of Sicily.
He was the son of Phidias, who was a renowned mathematician and astronomer.
When he completed his basic education in Sicily, Archimedes traveled to Egypt to complete his
education.
At the time, the city of Alexandria was known for being one of the greatest places to receive
an education in the entire world.
Of course, not everyone can afford to send their child to Egypt for school, which leads
people to believe that he may have been descended from nobility.
Many scholars claim that he was a relative of King Hieron II, who was the ruler of Syracuse
at that time.
When Archimedes returned to Syracuse after completing his education, he arrived with
the object that is credited as one of his first inventions.
This was known as the “Archimedes Screw”.
Scholars believe that Archimedes could have borrowed the idea from something that had
already existed in Egypt, but bringing it to Greece it truly revolutionized life for
people living in Syracuse.
This was a spiral-shaped device that could be placed into a river or a ditch of water,
and when you turn the handle, water travels uphill.
This made it incredibly easy to fill a bucket with water, and to drain an underground well
or ditch.
The device is now named after him, called the Archimedes Screw.
It would later be used to water the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which became one of the
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The Archimedes Screw is so efficient, it is still sometimes to irrigate fields to this
very day.
Aside from these details of his achievements, we don’t know very much about the personal
life of Archimedes.
He actually did give the details of his life to his friend and biographer, Heracleides,
but the text was lost over the course of time.
We don’t even know if he was ever married, or had any children.
But the stories of his greatest achievements were based down through the years, which is
how they still survived today.
Many of these stories seem so outlandish, that they are often debated, and some historians
consider to be legends.
At the very least, we do know Archimedes’ personality.
According to the Greek biographer Plutarch, Archimedes was so hyper-focused on his work,
that it became the most important thing in his life.
He often forgot to take cadre of his basic human needs.
"(Archimedes would) forget his food and neglect his person, to the degree that when he was
occasionally carried by absolute violence to bathe or have his body anointed.
He used to trace geometrical figures in the ashes of the fire, and diagrams in the oil
on his body.
(He was) in a state of entire preoccupation and, in the truest sense, divine possession
with his love and delight in science."
The Golden Grown
One of the most famous stories about Archimedes is that of the golden crown.
This story was originally recorded during the first century BC by a Roman architect
named Vitruvius, based on the tale that had been passed down for generations by word-of-mouth.
It has been retold again and again ever since.
As the story goes, a local goldsmith in Syracuse was commissioned to create a golden wreath
crown out of pure gold.
These crowns were placed on the heads of the statues of the Greek Gods and Goddesses in
order to pay tribute to them.
However, once King Hieron got the crown back, he was surprised by its weight.
He believed that the goldsmith possibly swindled him out of some of his gold by creating the
crown by using silver, and then plating it with gold.
However, he had no way to prove that without damaging the crown.
Archimedes was given the task of figuring out of a golden crown was truly made of pure
gold, or if it was simply a gold-plating on a cheaper metal.
After he was given this problem to solve, he became obsessed with it, and this was all
that he could think of day and night.
He would write down mathematical equations without positive results.
Just like always, he stopped eating, sleeping, and bathing while he tried to solve the problem.
Eventually, his students dragged him into the bath house to clean himself, because he
was beginning to seriously reek.
When he laid down in the bath, some of the water splashed over the edge of the tub.
He realized that the weight of his body dispersed the water, and the excess had to leave the
tub in order to accommodate his body.
Suddenly, he realized that he could use this to solve the issue of the golden crown.
Apparently, he was so excited by this discovery that he jumped out of the bathtub, and ran
down the streets shouting, “Eureka!”- “I have found it!” without ever bothering
to get dressed.
People gasped and covered their children’s eyes, while others laughed at the eccentric
genius they all knew and loved.
Some historians believe that this last part was exaggerated, and that it may have just
been a silly story told for fun.
Even so, the practice of shouting the phrase “Eureka!” after a huge discovery is still
used today.
Vitruvius wrote, “The solution which occurred when he stepped into his bath and caused it
to overflow was to put a weight of gold equal to the crown, and known to be pure, into a
bowl which was filled with water to the brim.
Then the gold would be removed and the king’s crown put in, in its place.
An alloy of lighter silver would increase the bulk of the crown and cause the bowl to
overflow.”
Once Archimedes proposed this solution to the king, they compared the containers of
water side-by-side, it was clear that the goldsmith had, in fact, taken a lot of the
gold for himself, and gave the king a gold-plated crown.
They had sufficient evidence to find him guilty of stealing from the king.
In modern times, there are some scholars who believe that this story has been over-simplified
throughout the years, and that Achimedes may have used a more complex method in order to
figure out the solution to the golden crown.
Others say that it was a symbolic story, and that the incident never happened at all.
But we do know that it truly did happen, because these experiments resulted in the creation
of the Archimedes Principle.
This discovery would later become a law of physics, and began as the basics of fluid
mechanics.
It is still used by engineers today.
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Inventions and Achievements
Throughout his lifetime, King Hieron II continued to bring his requests to Archimedes, and he
was often challenged to use his mind to create the impossible.
The King commissioned him to build a vessel known as The Syracusia.
It was said to have been one of the largest boats that was ever built in ancient times,
and required the same amount of material that would normally go into building 60 ships.
It took over 100 men to assemble it after one year of work.
According to the historian Moschion of Phaselis, the interior of the Syracusia was so extravagant,
it would even impress people in modern times.
The boat was to be constructed of exotic wood and marble.
It had watchtowers staffed with soldiers, statues of the gods, fresh water baths, a
massive dining hall serving the finest food, a gymnasium, a library, and a temple.
Objects were made of ivory and gold.
One of the largest pieces of original artwork that was commissioned for the ship was an
illustration of the entire epic of the Iliad along the walls of the ship that had been
hand-assembled in mosaic tiles.
King Hieron wanted to do more than just a luxury pleasure cruise along the coast line.
He planned to take it across the Mediterranian sea.
So, how could something so heavy actually float?
Archimedes figured out The Law of Buoyancy and hydrostatics in order to make it all work.
The King wanted the impossible, and yet Archimedes was able to make it happen yet again.
Without his calculations and the Law of Buoyancy, modern-day cruise ships and mega-yachts may
not exist.
Once the ship was finally finished, the people of Syracuse celebrated its completion, and
nearly 2,000 people were allowed on board.
tHowever, after its maiden voyage from Sicily to Egypt, no one knows what happened to the
famous ship.
Aside from figuring out how luxury cruise liners can float, Archimedes invented some
pretty incredible things that we still use to this very day, like the Law of the Lever
and Balance.
He told the King that he could lift any object, no matter how heavy it was.
He was quoted saying to the King, “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth”.
Impressed and slightly skeptical, the King asked to see him lift a ship out of the sea.
Through a set of cogs and pulleys, Archimedes was able to sit down at one end of the lever
and lift a ship that was full of heavy gear.
While we take them for granted today, his simple machine inventions of the level, pulley,
and screw were completely revolutionary, and would be essential to building modern society.
All of this was incredibly impressive, but his favorite achievements might surprise you.
They were his geometric equations.
In one of his publications called Method, he explained how he was testing various levers
with geometric shapes.
He would see how weights balanced against one another with the center of gravity.
Sometimes, he would see that something worked, but that wasn’t enough.
He needed to use math to prove step-by-step why it worked.
These were some of the world’s first geometric proofs.
Archimedes was so obsessed with calculating math problems, that he would carry around
a tray of sand with him so that he could trace calculations with his fingers.
One of his most significant contributions to math came from his publication called On
the Measurement of the Circle, where he figured out the ratio of a circle's circumference
to its diameter is Pi, or 3.14.
He worked on calculating the volume and surface area of various shapes and objects.
He even created the system of using exponents to describe large numbers.
Before this time, Greek scientists would perform an experiment, and draw conclusions from it
afterwards.
Archimedes would begin with math first, and then perform experiments in order to attempt
to see what would happen in reality.
Through this form of experimentation, Archimedes was responsible for so many theorems that
would eventually be classified as laws of physics.
Because of this, his mind has been compared to Einstein.
His brain was a truly remarkable level of genius that you rarely see but once in a lifetime.
The Roman Invasion of Syracuse
In the 3rd century BC, the Mediterranean basin was split between the Carthaginians in the
west, while the Greeks in the east.
The Romans controlled Rome, of course, but they were getting ready to invade the surrounding
territory to build their empire.
The Romans and the Carthaginians fought the First Punic War from 264 to 241 BC.
The war ended with Rome taking the victory over Carthage.
This meant that Sicily was now a Roman territory.
King Hieron II was able to maintain peace with Rome, and remain and independent city,
so long as they paid tribute in the form of goods.
This all changed in 218BC when The Second Punic War began.
In 215 BC, King Hieron II died, and King Hieronymus became the new ruler of Syracuse.
He chose to switch the city’s loyalty from Rome, and became rivals with Carthage instead.
Clearly, this was a huge mistake.
From 214 to 212 BC, the city of Syracuse now had to fend off Roman invaders.
So far in this story, you may think that Archimedes was more of a nerdy type who was only concerned
with maths.
If you were to put him in a fight, you wouldn’t exactly put your bets on him that he would
win.
But when the king gave him the task of inventing unstoppable war machines to fight the Roman
Empire, his mind delivered.
Archimedes may have been an old man in his 70’s, but his mind was still sharp as a
tack.
Yet again, he was able to achieve the impossible.
He created defense weapons that successfully defended the city for at least two years.
One of his most powerful weapons was known as The Archimedes Claw.
The claw was attached to his levels and pulley system.
The claw would grab on to the front of a Roman boat, lift it up in the air, and drop it back
into the sea.
This would capsize the ship, dumping the crew and all of its weapons into the Medeterranian
sea.
The Roman commander, Marcellus was quoted saying, “Archimedes uses my ships to ladle
sea water into his wine cups”
But he didn’t stop there.
Archimedes also created both large and small catapults that were able to blast holes through
the Roman ships.
According to Plutarch, "When Archimedes began to ply his engines, he at once shot against
the land forces all sorts of missile weapons, and immense masses of stone that came down
with incredible noise and violence; against which no man could stand; for they knocked
down those upon whom they fell in heaps, breaking all their ranks and files.”
Archimedes has also been credited for helping Syracuse use “burning mirrors”, which
reflected the sunlight onto the sails of the Roman ships, causing them to catch fire.
The following scene was described in a 12th Century text called The Book of Histories:
“The old man [Archimedes] constructed a kind of hexagonal mirror, and at an interval
proportionate to the size of the mirror he set similar small mirrors with four edges,
moved by links and by a form of hinge, and made it the centre of the sun's beams--its
noon-tide beam, whether in summer or in mid-winter.
Afterwards, when the beams were reflected in the mirror, a fearful kindling of fire
was raised in the ships, and at the distance of a bow-shot he turned them into ashes.”
The defense weapons were so successful, that they were responsible for killing thousands
of Roman soldiers.
So long as the continued to go after Syracuse, the men were killed by these machines.
Commander Marcus Claudius Marcellus decided that it was futile to attack Syracuse, so
they waited until they could find their perfect moment to conquer the city.
By 212 BC, Syracuse could not defend itself for much longer.
According to some historians, the citizens of the city were beginning to starve, because
they were surrounded by the Romans and could not get their supplies.
This starvation forced them to surrender.
According to others, Syracuse refused to surrender, and Archimedes’ weapons were strong enough
to hold them off.
But the Romans managed to take advantage of a weak spot in one of their land-facing defensive
walls while everyone was busy celebrating a religious festival.
Either way, Rome finally captured Syracuse, and ultimately won the Second Punic War.
Death, and Legacy
Marcellus Claudius Marcellus knew that Archimedes was responsible for these glorious weapons,
and he knew that he could be an asset to the Roman Empire.
Once they captured the city, he gave strict orders that this genius was an asset, and
must not be harmed.
He gave the order to bring Archimedes to him.
The only issue was that the Roman soldiers had no idea what Archimedes looked like.
The finer details of the story of his death change depending on the source, but what we
do know is that Archimedes was in the middle of working on his geometry on the beach.
He was tracing images of circles and mathematical equations in the sand.
A Roman warrior walked over top of his geometric drawings, which scattered all of his work.
Archimedes was outraged, and seemed to be totally oblivious to the fact that this was
a Roman soldier.
According to legend, his last words were, “Do not disturb my circles!” before being
cut down by the man’s sword.
He was 75 years old.
After his death, Archimedes was buried in a large tomb that represented his mathematical
achievements.
Even though he had destroyed so many Roman ships, they still had a tremendous amount
of respect for him, and scholars would visit to pay homage to his great mind.
At the tomb, there was a statue of a sphere and a cylinder.
This represented what Archimedes considered to be his greatest achievement; “If a sphere
is inscribed in a cylinder, then the sphere is 2/3 of the cylinder in both surface area
and volume.”
Years later, the famous Roman statesman named Cicero wrote that he wanted to pay his respects
to the tomb of Archimedes.
After searching for hours, he finally found it near the Agrigentine gate in Syracuse.
It was overgrown with vegetation, and clear that no one had bothered to visit in a very
long time.
Cicero cleaned up the area, and wrote down the inscriptions that he found on the tomb,
so that it would never be forgotten by history.
In modern times, people have theories as to where the location of the tomb may be, but
no one knows for sure.
In the 1960’s, the Hotel Panorama claimed that they discovered the tomb of Archimedes
during construction, and that they preserved it in their court yard.
However, some people believe that this was just a publicity stunt to attract more guests
to the hotel.
Years after his death, the works of Archimedes had been re-written, passed down by scribes
over and over again.
As tragic as it sounds, there must be countless numbers of notes and texts that Archimedes
created from his lifetime of work, and it would have been lost or destroyed over time.
Even though it was nearly impossible to find one of these missing original texts, it happened
In 1906.
A lost work known as the Archimedes Palimpsest were discovered buried in an old Christian
text.
Way back in 1229 AD, a man named Johannes Myronas was reusing parchment from old books,
and he unwittingly covered up the original work of Archimedes and replaced it with prayers.
In 2008, the text was purchased by its present owner who was open to the idea of allowing
it to be dissected for research purposes.
A group called The Friends of Archimedes got together to restore the 3rd Codex.
A team from a variety of different professional backgrounds spent over 4 years restoring the
manuscript.
One of the scholars, William Noel, explains in his TED Talk that they had to go through
a painstaking process of removing glue and examining the pages one-by-one under various
light sources in order to reveal the hidden works of Archimedes.
This group did not do this project for the money, but rather, for the love of knowledge,
and out of respect for Archimedes’ mind.
They believed that this information should be free to the public, so they made the entire
3rd Codex available to read online for free.
The only catch is that you need to know how to read in ancient Greek.
The odds that we will ever find more of his discoveries like this are slim-to-none.
But the work that we do remember from Archimedes was enough to revolutionize modern-day math,
science, and engineering.
Without his brilliant mind, the world truly would be a very different place.