Biography

Archemedies Bio. Back to main page

Birth: 212 in Syracuse Death: 287 in Syracuse during the Second Punic War

Archemedies Main Interests - math, physics, engineering, astronomy and inventing

Archemedies was said to have lived for about 75 years. Archemedies might have been related to Kind Heiro II, a ruler of Syracuse. It is not known whether Archemedies married or had children. According to the popular account given by Plutarch, Archimedes was working on a mathematical diagram when the city was taken over. A Roman soldier wanted him to come and meet General Marcellus but he didn't, saying that he wanted to finish working on the math problem. The soldier was angry, so he killed Archimedes with his sword. In a different story, Archemedies may have been killed while surrendering to a Roman soldier. According to this story , Archimedes was carrying mathematical instruments and he was killed because the Roman soldier thought they were valuable items worth money. His last words were " Do not distub my circles" which was the mathematical diagram/problem he was working on when the Romans captured Syracuse. When Archimedes was buried, they placed on his tombstone the figure of a sphere inscribed inside a cylinder and the 2:3 ratio of the volumes between them, the solution to the problem he considered his greatest discovery.

Notable Discoveries/Inventions - Levers(didnt invent, just wrote the first known works on the principle of it), hydrstatics,infinitesimals, proved that the volume and surface area of a sphere would be 2/3 of the cylinder's, invented a method for measuring the volume of an object with an irregular shape. He was also asked by a king to see of a crown was solid gold, or if a goldsmith had cheating him out. He was asked to do this without dammaging the crown. While he was taking a bath, he noticed that the level of the water rose as he got in. He realized that this effect could be used to determine the volume of the crown, and so its density after weighing it. The density of the crown would be lower if cheaper and less dense metals had been added. Archimedes has also been credited with improving the power and accuracy of the catapult.He worked with hydrostatics, static mechanics, pycnometry (the measurement of the volume or density of an object). He is called the "father of integral calculus" and also the "father of mathematical physics". In the picture to the right, there is a sphere inside a cylinder that has the same height and diameter. Archimedes had dsicovered that the volume and surface area of the sphere would be two thirds less than the cylinder.

Archemedeis also had a few of his own recognizable quotes such as: //__Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth__. - meaning of when he invented the principle for the lever __Do not disturb my circles!__// - //supposed to have said before he died

Here is a podcast on my ideas and the facts I've collected on Archimedes. media type="file" key="Archimedes Podcast.wma"//