Life of Archimedes
Archimedes was born in 287BC in Syracuse in
Sicily, then a Greek colony. He lived during the reign of intellectual rulers
King Heiron II and his son King Gelon. He may have been Gelon's tutor.
Archimedes went to Alexandria in Egypt, at that time the greatest centre of
learning in the ancient world, and the city itself was founded by Alexander the
Great half a century earlier that time.
Archimedes' Solves a Problem
The Greek Mathematician and inventor Archimedes lived during the 3rd century BC. According to history he was in the bath one day when he discovered the principle of buoyancy which is the reason why huge Greek ships weighing thousands of pounds could float on water. He noticed that as he lowered himself into the bath, the water displaced by his body overflowed the sides and he realised that there was a relationship between his weight and the volume of water displaced. It is said that he ran naked into the street yelling "heurEka" which is where we get our word "eureka!" (I found it), Greek heurEka I have found, from heuriskein to find.
Archimedes was not thinking about ships at the time, he was on a mission to solve a question that was asked of him by King Hieron II of Syracuse, the home of Archimedes which was a Greek city at the time. The question that the king had asked was about his crown. Was it pure gold or partly silver? Archimedes reasoned that if the crown had any silver in it, it would take up more space than a pure gold crown of the same weight because silver is not as dense as gold. He compared the crown's volume (measured by the amount of water displaced) with the volume of equal weights of gold and then silver, he found the answer. He had to inform his king that the crown was not pure gold.
Archimedes was not thinking about ships at the time, he was on a mission to solve a question that was asked of him by King Hieron II of Syracuse, the home of Archimedes which was a Greek city at the time. The question that the king had asked was about his crown. Was it pure gold or partly silver? Archimedes reasoned that if the crown had any silver in it, it would take up more space than a pure gold crown of the same weight because silver is not as dense as gold. He compared the crown's volume (measured by the amount of water displaced) with the volume of equal weights of gold and then silver, he found the answer. He had to inform his king that the crown was not pure gold.