Archimedes

This problem-solving mathematical genius, came up with calculations and clever inventions that have stayed afloat since ancient times. A legendary life of EUREKA moments

Archimedes would have studied in the library of Alexandria – the greatest library of the ancient world.

Crown challenge

Born in about 287 bce in Syracuse on the island of Sicily, Archimedes was taught in Alexandria, Egypt, at the school of Greek mathematician

Euclid. He enjoyed using

MATHEMATICS to solve problems and was given a challenge to work out if King Hiero II’s crown was made of pure gold.

EUREKA!

By the way… Even though I’m known for mathematics and science, I also enjoyed poetry, art, and music.

What came before…

The world’s first book about geometry was developed by Hippocrates of Chios (470–410 bce) – a merchant turned mathematician, known for his work with circles and cubes.

The Wheel of theodorus, a spiral of consecutive right triangles, was constructed by mathematics wizard

Theodorus of Cyrene (465–398 bce). He also studied square roots and irrational numbers.

The breakthrough came at bath time when Archimedes noticed overflowing water. He had displaced (moved aside) the same volume of water as the volume of his submerged body. Shouting “Eureka!” (I’ve found it!), Archimedes realized this was the SOLUTION TO MEASURING VOLUME – silver is lighter than gold, so a silver crown of equal weight would have a higher volume and displace more water. As a result, he proved the king’s crown was a combination of silver and gold.

Did you know? Archimedes worked out the formula for calculating the volume of a sphere.

Colossal calculations

Archimedes worked on many more theories. He wanted to know how many grains of sand would fill the Universe. However, the Greek number system was based on letters, such as A=1, B=2, C=3, and there were not enough letters to represent large numbers, so Archimedes came up with a NEW NUMBER SYSTEM to count colossal numbers.

When a handle is turned, the blades rotate and scoop up water, moving it to a higher level.

Archimedes screw

By the time of his death in 212 bce, Archimedes was the brains behind many INVENTIONS, including a compound pulley, catapult, and war defences. The best known was the Archimedes screw, a machine designed to carry heavy water to higher ground. Archimedes was way ahead How he changed the world of his time. As well as finding a new way of measuring volume and writing very large numbers – now known as standard notation – many more of his ideas and discoveries are still used today.

What came after…

In his book ConiCs, Apollonius of Perga (c.262–190 bce) examined conical sections, making new strides in the field of geometry. He was called the

Great Geometer as a result. Among the first to

1/x + 1/y = 1/n

xn + yn = zn

use symbols in algebra, Greek mathematician Diophantus (201–285 bce) wrote a series of books titled Arithmetica, which discussed algebraic equations.