Archimedes

“Give a place to stand, and I can move the world.” The man who is supposed to have spoken those words was Archimedes, a Greek mathematician and inventor who lived some 2,200 years ago. Its was not and idle boast. Archimedes was one of the firs men to the develop the science mechnics. He understood that a man with a mechanical device such as alever could move many times his own weight. Challenged by the king to prove his point, Archimedes did so. He arranged a ship all by himself.

Archimedes was born about 287 B.C., in Syracuse, a Greek settlement on the island of sicily. Little is known about his personal lefe except that his father was an atronomer and may have been related to the king of Syracuse. Also, at some time in his life Archimedes studied in Alexandria, Egypt, a center of Greek culture.

Archimedes is best known for his many inventions. Among other things, he invented a compound pulley; a sphere that imitated the motion of heavenly bodies; and a water screw to raise water. He himself moast valued his work in mathematics and scientific theory. But his fame rest on inventions and the legends that grew up around him.
One legend tells how Archimedes made his most important discovery.
The king, it seems, had ordered a new crown. It was supposed to be made of solid gold, but the king suspected that the jeweler has cheated him. He asked Archimedes to tell him if the crown was solid gold.

At first Archimedes could not think how to do this. Then one day the solution came to him as he was getting into his bath. Legend has it that he ruhed naked into the streets shouting, “Eureka [I have found it]!”.

What had happened very simple. The bath was full, and it overflowed as Archimedes climbed into it. This started him thinking about the way objects displace water. And he studdenly saw how to solve his problem.

First he took a quantity of gold and silver were equal, but their volumes were not. The silver, being less dense, was bulker than the gold.
Next Archimedes two vessels filled to the brim with waqter. He palced the gold in one and the silver in the other. The silver, being bulkier, caused more water to overflow. Archimedes concluded that when a solid sinks in water, it displaces its own volume of water.

Finaly he tested the crown against the equal weight of gold. When placed in water, the crown caused more overflow. Therefore, the crown had to contain metal other than gold. This metal made it bulkier and caused the greater overflow.

Further experiments resulted in what is known as Achimedes’ principle ; An object in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of displaced fluid.
When Archimedes was an old man, the Roman attacked Syracuse. He turned his mind to defense, an inveted several engines of war that held off the enemy. It is claimed that he built a huge burning mirror. When it was used to focus the sun’s rays on the roman fleet, the ships were set on fire. Syracuse however, was defeated in 212 B.C., and Archimedes was killed. The story goes that he was drawing mathematical figure in the sand when Roman soldier struck him down. Archimedes was so higly respected that the Roman commander buried him with full honors.