The Great Archimedes

Archimedes was one of the best mathematicians, physicists, and inventors that ever lived.

Archimedes was well known for his major discoveries in the way we think in math and physics.

To understand why he is important, it is necessary to investigate his discoveries and inventions

and why he was one of the best at all of these things. Archimedes was remarkable, because he

was a Greek at a time when there were many, many well-known and influential Greek people.

Considering you had to be very significant to be one the best Greek mathematicians, that shows

just how important Archimedes was.

Everyone has a beginning; Archimedes was born in 287 B.C.E in Syracuse, Sicily, Italy.

The only parent of Archimedes that is known was Phidias and he was a Greek astronomer. Most

of Archimedes’s family is unknown because the papers where their names were written and who

they were was burned. A Roman historian named Plutarch said that Archimedes was related to

Heiron II, king of Syracuse. Archimedes then spent some time in Sicily before he went to study

in Alexandria, Egypt, where he learned mathematics and science. After a few years, Archimedes

finished his learning in Alexandria and he returned to Syracuse, and that is when Archimedes

started to discover things. Even though Archimedes was Greek, he spent most of his life in

Syracuse, Italy. While Archimedes was in Syracuse he spent most of his time researching and

developing his ideas.

Archimedes started to build a good reputation when he started to work with Hiero II, king

of Syracuse. Archimedes was very significant to Syracuse because he contributed much to the

safety of the city. He did this by making different devices to protect Syracuse. Some of the

devices that he made where the Archimedes death ray, the Archimedes iron claw, and the

catapult. By protecting Syracuse’s king, Archimedes developed a reputation of working with the

king and this is seen later on in his life. He also became important because some of his
inventions helped citizens to do daily tasks more easily. One of the things he made was the

Archimedes Screw.

There were many people around Archimedes, but few are known. The main people that

are known are his father and King Hieron. Since Archimedes was friends with King Hiero, it was

no surprise for them to help each other. Considering that Archimedes was friends with King

Hieron, he helped him with some of his problems, and one example of a problem was the King

Hiero crown problem. Since most of the information about Archimedes and the people around

him has been burned, there is not that much known about his life. There is one thing known for

sure and that is that Archimede’s father was a astronomer, so it was not surprising that at a young

age Archimedes had a love for problem solving.

Archimedes had many mathematical discoveries, but one of the most significant

discoveries involves cylinders and spheres. He was trying to find the volume of a sphere using a

cylinder and he came up with this: The volume of a sphere is ⅔ of a cylinder inscribed with the

sphere. With this he found the formula to find the volume of a sphere which is V=4/3πr3 . This is

an important discovery because if it were not for Archimedes we would not have been able to

find the volume and surface area of a sphere.

Another discovery of Archimedes is part of the base of physics and it is called The Law

of the Leaver. The lever had been discovered before Archimedes lived but it was not explained

how it worked. What Archimedes did was advance on what was already known about the lever.

He did this by saying, “Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth” (“Interesting”). What

he means by this is that if you give him somewhere to stand, a long enough object, and a fulcrum

he can lift the earth. (The fulcrum is where the long object would be leaning on).
 Archimedes discovered many things, but few of them represent him. For example, if you

think of Archimedes, you will think of this. One of his discoveries was called Eureka. His

discovery was found when King Hiero II wanted to know if his crown was actually made of gold

but there was no way of proving it because it looked exactly like gold. Archimedes kept thinking

of how to prove if the crown was made of gold. While he was thinking, he went to take a bath

and that is when the light bulb turned on. The idea popped into his head when he was going into

a full bath tub; when he went into the bathtub, a bunch of water spilled out. When Archimedes

got the idea, he said “Eureka! I have found it!” (“Interesting”). Archimedes though that if you fill

a container full of water and you put the crown in the amount of water that spills out is the same

weight as the crown. Then he took the same amount of gold that the crown should have been

made of and put it in water and if the water displaced from both containers had the same weight,

the crown would be real and if it was different the crown was not gold.

Some of Archimedes discoveries are connected to each other. This next discovery ties

into the discovery about the spheres and cylinders. Archimedes is the first person accurately

found a way to determine the numbers of pi. He found it by trying to create a fraction that is

equivalent to pi. The only people before Archimedes that tried to find pi made estimations and

they never could find a way to accurately represent pi. Archimedes did this by making pi into a

fraction and he came up with this. Pi is in between 3 11/71 and 3 1/7. This allowed him to find pi

3.141593653…

Most of the inventions that Archimedes made were weapons and there is a reason for

that. The reason that Archimedes made weapons was because he was trying to help the king of

Syracuse defend the city against the Romans. One of his inventions has an epic name and it is

called The Archimedes Death ray. The invention was a huge curved circle that is covered in a
bunch of little mirrors and it was put near where the Romans would try to conquer Syracuse. The

whole point of making this was so that if a Roman fire ship came close to the city, the mirror on

the circle would concentrate the sun's rays onto the ship and it would catch fire.

Another invention that Archimedes made was called the iron claw. The iron claw was a

long thick piece of metal with a hook-like structure on the end. The iron claw was used in the

same sense as the death ray in that it was trying to keep Roman ships from coming close to the

city of Syracuse. The whole point of the iron claw was that if a Roman ship came close to

Syracuse, the claw would be made to reach out to the Roman ship and the claw would hook the

nose of the ship. What this did was give the ability for the people using the claw to flip the ship

and sink it.

This next invention was not to defend Syracuse but it was to help the people in Syracuse.

The invention was called the Archimedes Screw. The Archimedes Screw essentially was a

device that was used to transport water upwards while at the same time being efficient. It did this

by having a screw when there is a border on the edge of the screw so the water does not fall out.

It worked when you would spin the screw, and then the edge of the screw which is in the water,

would take the water and pull it up the screw. This helped citizens by making it easier to transfer

large amounts of water upward.

Another invention is called the Odometer. All the Odometer really does is that it

measures the total distance that a wheeled vehicle has traveled in its lifetime. This device is

typically found on cars and motorcycles in the modern day. It can be found under the

speedometer of a car or motorcycle.

One of Archimedes’s most famous inventions was the catapult. The catapult is a

extremely popular defending and attacking device because of its extreme range and power. The
catapult is a large wooden structure that has a rod in the middle of it so that when you pull back

the rod you shoot a projectile. You put the thing you are trying to shoot on the rod and then you

wind the rod back and it creates tension which is held by a rope. The tension is broken loose

once the rope holding the tension is cut. This device allowed the person using it to destroy

something far away with a great amount of force. The catapult was mostly used in the Middle

Ages until the cannon was invented and the catapult began to be used less. “You can look at the

things that Archimedes has made and you would think they are similar to one other but that is not

true “(Condie). “Rather than reporting on the results of experiments or pointing to observations

for his reasoning – techniques favored by his predecessor, Aristotle, Archimedes’s works were

entirely abstract, paving the way for the standardized approach to science that is essential for

fields such as theoretical physics” (“Archimedes”).

Archimedes was great man, in other words one of the greatest, but when a story starts it

has to end. Archimedes’s life ended when the Romans took over Syracuse in 212 B.C.E. . While

the Romans were invading, a Roman soldier stumbled upon Archimedes and the Roman soldier

told Archimedes to move and leave the building. But he refused and said, “let me experiment”.

Then, because Archimedes did not leave, the soldier killed him.

Once Archimedes died, he was not forgotten. This is seen in the influence he had on

many people who made the basis of astronomy and physics. Archimedes influenced Isaac

Newton and Galileo Galilei (Toomer). He was enormously influential in the work of some of the

best mathematicians of the 17th century” (britannica). These people are some of the most

important people that have ever lived. Archimedes was a great man; he should be respected.

He had a huge influence on the world that we live in today. Most of the greatest

mathematicians that ever lived after Archimedes would not have been able to discover things
without his prior discoveries. People should understand why he is so influential. Hopefully,

people can realize what kind of human he was and why he is so important.
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Accessed Jan 22, 2019

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