Archimedes of Syracuse: Innovations and Legacy

Archimedes of Syracuse

Archimedes was a citizen of Greece. He was born in 287 B.C. in a city called Syracuse, on the Island of Sicily. His father Phidias was an astronomer. Many of the things we know about the universe began with Archimedes.

Archimedes: Unusual character of ancient times. Many of his ideas and discoveries were new. He was a polymath. Probably he is the first military engineer. He is the founder of mathematical physics.

He was not only interested in theoretical issues, but also invented technical devices. He invented the Archimedean screw. It is a device that is still used to drain or irrigate fields and load grain and run high speed machine.

He also invented the war machines for defending the city of Syracuse against a great Roman fleet and army. He was the first to show that numbers unimaginably big, bigger then all the things there are, could be written and used.

In my opinion, the most important thing Archimedes gave to the world was a logical way of thinking about mathematics. So that, it can be said he is founder of mathematical physics.

Archimedes and His Lever He discovered that a lever had to be free to move on some point. The work done on it -the push or pull- is the force. The work to be done is the resistance. The point on which the lever turns or moves is the fulcrum.

Levers

Archimedes and King Hieros Crown In the first century BC the Roman architect Vitruvius related a story of how Archimedes uncovered a fraud in the manufacture of a golden crown commissioned by Hiero II, the king of Syracuse. The crown (corona in Vitruvius s Latin) would have been in the form of a wreath, such as one of the three pictured from grave sites in Macedonia and the Dardanelles. Hiero would have placed such a wreath on the statue of a god or goddess. Suspecting that the goldsmith might have replaced some of the gold given to him by an equal weight of silver, Hiero asked Archimedes to determine whether the wreath was pure gold. And because the wreath was a holy object dedicated to the gods, he could not disturb the wreath in any way. (In modern terms, he was to perform nondestructive testing). Archimedes solution to the problem, as described by Vitruvius, is neatly summarized in the following excerpt from an advertisement:

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. (https://www.math.nyu.edu/~crorres/Archimede s/Crown/CrownIntro.html)

What is he found? He found that some materials are heavier than the others. We can say they are more dense. Gold is heavier than iron. Iron is heavier than wood.

Archimedes and Astronomy The Egyptians and Babylonians was great practical astronomers. The made careful observations and kept careful records. But the Greeks approached astronomy more abstract than the Egyptians and the Babylonians. Greek word Cosmos mean orderly and harmonious arrangement . Archimedes built an instrument for measuring the angles of rising Sun.

Source: Archimedes and The Door of Science, Jeanne Bendick.