ARCHIMEDES

(287B.C.-212B.C.) Sicilian/Greek Physicist, Mathematician

KARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS considered Archimedes one of the two greatest mathematicians in history;
only ISAAC NEWTON was his equal. Archimedes’ estimation for the numerical value of pi survived as the
best approximation available into the Middle Ages. However, he was most renowned for his practical
applications of mathematical and physical theories. Two of his innovations, Archimedes’ principle and the
Archimedes screw, involved the displacement of water, and he was considered the founder of
hydrostatics.

Though little is known about Archimedes’ personal life, his own writings reveal the identity of his father,
the astronomer Phidias. Archimedes was born in Syracuse on the island of Sicily in about 287 B.C.
Evidence suggests that he traveled to Alexandria, where he studied mathematics under the successors of
EUCLID. He returned to Sicily, which was under the rule of King Hieron II, supposedly a relative or at
least a friend (Archimedes dedicated The Sand-Reckoner to Hieron’s son, Gel on).

In this late text Archimedes contrived a notation system for very large numbers, and in another text,
Measurement of the Circle, he estimated the value of pi as 22/7, a relatively accurate figure. However, his
applications of mathematical concepts proved even more profound than his abstract realizations. In De
architectura, Vitruvius told the dubious story of Archimedes’ solution to a problem posed by Hieron—how
to test whether a gift crown was indeed pure gold, as the giver claimed, or alloyed with less precious
metals, as Hieron suspected. As Archimedes pondered the problem in the bathtub, he noticed that the
farther he immersed his body in the tub, the more water spilled over the edge. He hypothesized that the
density of the displaced water equaled the density of his submerged body. In his excitement he rushed
through the streets naked shouting, “Eureka!” While testing the authenticity of the crown, he noticed that a
block of pure gold equal in weight to the crown displaced less water than the crown, thus casting doubt on
its composition.

This test, which hinged on relative density and buoyancy, became known as Archimedes’ principle.
Archimedes described this principle, along with his understanding of buoyancy (or the upward force
exerted on solids by liquids), in On Floating Bodies, a text that established him as the founder of
hydrostatics. Of even greater practical value was his invention of what became known as the Archimedes
screw, a device that could draw water along an ascending helix and was used for raising water in
irrigation systems.

Archimedes was apparently most proud of his formulation of the volume of a sphere as two-thirds that of
the cylinder in which it is inscribed, as discussed in one of his most famous works, On the Sphere and the
Cylinder. When Cicero was the quaestor, or chief financial officer, of Sicily in 75 B.C., he tracked down
Archimedes’ grave and verified that it was indeed inscribed with a sphere and cylinder as well as the
formula for their intersection.

Hieron called upon Archimedes to invent weapons to stay the Roman invasion of Sicily in 215 B.C., led by
Marcellus. Experts doubt that Archimedes invented the weapon of mirrors that ignited distant ships with
focused sunlight, though he did invent various catapults. Marcellus ultimately captured Sicily in 212 B.C.,
and though the general himself admired Archimedes’ work, his soldiers put the mathematician to death,
supposedly while he was making calculations in the sand.