Archimedes
Archimedes
Circa 287-212 b.c.e.
Scientist, mathematician
Inventor. The Son of Phidias, an astronomer, Archimedes lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse. Probably the greatest scientist and mathematician in antiquity, Archimedes’s contributions to mechanics, physics, and mathematics were admired by later scientists, including the eighteenth-century English physicist Isaac Newton. His fame became legendary when he was attributed as saving his city from Roman sieges during the Second Punic War (218–201 b.c.e.). He was allegedly bathing when the mathematical formula for the displacement of water occurred to him and caused him to run through the streets of Syracuse shouting, “Hêurêka [I have found it]!” Among his inventions were a screw for lifting water, a planetarium, and a star globe. While there is no evidence that he visited Alexandria, he corresponded with Eratosthenes and other researchers at the Museum. Ultimately, despite his mechanical inventions, Syracuse fell to the Romans and Archimedes, while teaching, was killed by a Roman soldier.
Contributions. Archimedes developed and wrote about mathematical formulae to determine the volume of such shapes as cones and spheres, the properties of spirals and parabolas, and large-number theory. He broke boundaries in mathematics, wrote treatises in mechanics and mathematics, was an astronomer, and may even have invented a game.
Sources
E. J. Dijksterhuis, Archimedes, translated by C. Dikshoorn (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).
Sherman Stein, Archimedes: What Did He Do Besides Cry Eureka? (Washington, D.C.: Mathematical Association of America, 1999).