|
Archimedes was the greatest mathematician of the ancient world. He
was born in Syracuse, a Greek colony on Sicily, a generation after Euclid.
Renowned as a mechanical genius for his many engineering inventions,
he designed pulleys for lifting heavy ships and the spiral screw for
transporting water to higher levels. He is said to have used parabolic
mirrors to concentrate the rays of the sun to set fire to Roman ships
attacking Syracuse. King Hieron II of Syracuse once suspected a goldsmith
of keeping part of the gold intended for the king's crown and replacing
it with an equal amount of silver. The king asked Archimedes for advice.
While in deep thought in a public bath, Archimedes discovered the solution
to the king's problem when he noticed that his body's volume was the
same as the column of water it displaced from the tub. As the story
is told, he ran home naked, shouting "Eureka, eureka!" ("I have found
it, I have found it!") This incident attests to his enormous powers
of concentration. In spite of his engineering prowess, Archimedes was
most proud of his mathematical discoveries. These included the formulas
for the volume of a sphere, the surface area of a sphere, and a careful
analysis of the properties of parabolas and other conics.
|