Writing Feedback / Archimedes; "Eureka!" essay [10]

"Eureka!" famously bellowed by Archimedes running naked, dripping with bath water, after discovering the solution to Hierons' crown dispute. "I have discovered" the derived meaning from the Greek word, Heureka. Hieron, King of Syracuse, received a golden crown and suspected that the gold smith had placed silver in the core of the crown. Looking for reason, Hieron asked Archimedes to prove that the golden crown wasn't pure. What Archimedes discovered is now called the Archimedes' Principle. Different densities of material of the same weight displace different amounts of water. Using a scale to measure a slot of gold the same weight as the crown, Archimedes placed both objects in water attached to a scale and discovered which item displaced more water. Since the densities of the object was less than the solid gold nugget, silver having a density of 10.5 g/ml and gold 19.32 g/ml, the greater water displacement of the more denser item was displayed by the lifting of the crown. Thus proving his principle, Hieron discovered his crown was impure.

Although his birthing place is debatable, most scholars would argue Archimedes was born in Syracuse, a Greek colony in Sicily, around 287 BCE. A son of the astronomer, Phidias, related to King Hieron, birthed a son Gelon, and later died at the hands of the Roman army Archimedes lived an accomplished life. Many stories surround his death, but none more impressive. It is said that Archimedes was working on three dimensional shapes, a favorite past-time, unknowing of the Roman invasion a lone soldier walked into Archimedes study and commanded Archimedes to surrender. With the reluctance of Archimedes to surrender, being too busy playing with shapes, the soldier unaware of who he was and the commands to just capture Archimedes released his sword from his side and impaled Archimedes. Archimedes died 212 BCE. Not much of Archimedes is known about his social life, but his engineering, mathematics, and contributions to science are legendary.

Work of Archimedes is still being discovered today. With the recently discovered palimpsest, scientists have been able to decode the writings of Archimedes using complex imagining and lighting techniques. The Archimedes manuscript, along with four other books, was scraped of its writings in order to make a prayer book, or Euchologion. This has made this book elusive to for those who have searched for it. The discovery of the Archimedes Palimpsest has shed new light regarding Archimedes historical contributions, mainly in the descriptions of his theories on the Equilibrium of Planes, Spiral Lines, Measurement of the Circle, Sphere and Cylinder, the Floating Bodies, the Methods of Mechanical Theorem, and the Stomation. The latter three having no written accounts of how Archimedes discovered or solved them until the finding of the Archimedes palimpsest by a billionaire antique collector. Like many achievements, like the Crown problem, Archimedes was far ahead of his time.

The Archimedes Screw is a pump that allows for vertical water transport. A large part of Archimedes creativity arose as part of the needs of his colony Syracuse. King Hieron commissioned Archimedes to create a monstrous vessel. This vessel, the Syracusia, purposively "was capable of carrying 600 people and included garden decorations, a gymnasium and a temple dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite among its facilities." (Wikipedia) The Archimedes screw was developed as a bilge pump. Usually with most ships of antiquity the sealing capabilities were less than perfect. Also, with long sea journeys storms would cause water to bellow into the cabin of the vessels. The Archimedes Screw used a spiral like screw inside of a hollow rode that would turn. This turning would then carry water in whatever destination needed. Evidence of Archimedes' Screw has be used, in concept, to develop a better functioning artificial heart that instead of mimicking the exact movement of blood thru the heart, the screw would connect directly to the Aorta and Vene Cava and past by the lungs for oxygenation in a constant motion rather that pumping blood through four cambers and passing through pulmonary veins and arteries.

Another phrase associated to Archimedes, "Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth," came after his indulgence in to levers and pulleys. Archimedes is notoriously known for his pulleys and levers. Pappus of Alexandria witnessed the birth of a man that could move mountains. Using a complex structure of pulleys and levers Archimedes attached one end to the bow of a boat and the other to a single gear. By himself, he was able to turn this gear and move the monstrous boat. While he did not invent the lever, Archimedes wrote about the basic principle involved in pulley systems. On that day, the king declared that all words of Archimedes would be infallible. With confidence by his side, he became an icon.

Along with engineering, mathematics was another area in a long list of Archimedes great achievement. His prediction of Pi was the closest of antiquity. He used equal polygons inscribed and ascribed in and around a circle. Starting with a triangle on the inside and outside, he gradually added more sides, by a multiple of two. He was able to measure the distance around the circle, mathematically, by measuring the distance of a single side of the polygon, ascribed and inscribed, and multiplying the length of one side by how many sides the polygon had. His final polygon used ninety-six sides. Then he used this length and figured out how many diameters would fit on that distance. His number, 3.1406, was the closest to Pi in the classical age. The idea of summation rose again with the findings of the area of complex shapes. Because of this idea, Archimedes is known as the Father of Integral Calculus, which is largely based on summations.

It is said that if Archimedes Palimpsest was never lost are world today would be very different. Flying cars, the Mars landing, anything. With his greatest achievements lost our advancement came at a price, 300 years, but still his legacy lives on. A man founded on the principles of science, mathematics, and inquisition. Whether his contributions are useful to you or not, his ideas shaped the world and its view of mathematics. For a man running naked down the corridors of Sicily yelling Eureka, his accomplishments sure did move the world.

How's this for a introduction?