Archimedes: The Most Brilliant Mind in History

Описание: Around 260 BCE, King Heiron II of Syracuse in Sicily had a problem. He had commissioned the construction of the Syracusia which, at 4,064 tons, was one of the largest ships ever built. But, despite the heroic efforts of hundreds of men on the ends of ropes, he had been unable to launch what had become a beached monster. But then a savior stepped forward. With an ingenious arrangement of pulleys and levers, this man single-handedly launched the Syracusia without even breaking a sweat.

The man’s name was Archimedes. After launching the Syracusia, he is reported to have told King Herion …

Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth.

Events like this made Archimedes a legend in his own life and have established him as the greatest inventor of ancient times.

Like many of the ancient thinkers of the early Greek period, little is known about the life of Archimedes. A biography was written by a follower named Heracleides but this has not survived. Such basic facts including whether he was married or had children are unknown. Greek and Roman biographies that were produced in the centuries after Archimedes’s death focused more on his war machinery than on the personal details of his life.

Archimedes was born in 287 BCE in Syracuse in Sicily which, at the time, was a Greek colony. A frontier town, Syracuse was wedged between Rome and Carthage, which were at war with each other. As a young man, Archimedes traveled to Alexandria in Egypt to further his education. There he was exposed to the teachings of the philosopher Aristotle, the geometrist Euclid, and the astrologist Hipparchus. It is a near certainty that he rubbed shoulders with Eratosthenes, who measured the circumference of the world to within 4 percent of what we acknowledge today.

In addition to gaining an education in science and mathematics, Archimedes was reportedly employed as an engineer on large-scale irrigation projects on the Nile Delta while in Egypt. During that time, it is likely that he also invented the screw which was to bear his name for pumping water.

After an unknown number of years, Archimedes returned to Syracuse, where he was to stay for the rest of his life. It was a life filled with invention, study, and contemplation. He seems to have been the original absent-minded professor, so absorbed in solving higher thinking problems that he was totally oblivious to everyday concerns.

The most famous story that has come down through history that reflects Archimedes’ obsessive thought process and his total disregard for societal niceties regarded a time when King Hieron II had tasked a goldsmith with commissioning a gold wreath for him. When the job was completed and the wreath presented to the king, he suspected that the goldsmith had stolen some of the gold and replaced it with a cheaper metal. Herion contacted Archimedes for help.

Archimedes puzzled over a way to figure out if the goldsmith had ripped off the King day and night. One day, so the story goes, he was lying in the bath mulling the problem over. He noticed that the water level rose higher as he sunk deeper into the bath. Then he had his lightbulb moment. He jumped straight out of the bath and ran through the streets naked to the king’s palace, declaring at the top of his voice …

Eureka! Eureka!

meaning ‘I have it! I have it!’

Having apparently gotten dressed first, he then showed his idea to the king. He placed a piece of gold weighing the same as the wreath in a bowl of water and pointed to the rise in the water level. He then put the wreath in water and showed that the water level was higher than the first time. This proved, he asserted, that the wreath was a greater volume than the gold, even if it was the same weight, showing that the wreath was not pure gold. On the basis of this finding, the offending goldsmith was taken out and executed.

Credits:
Illustration - Jonathan Benbow bongwedesign.com
Script - Steve Theunissen
Voice Actor - James Fowler

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