ARCHIMEDES

Archimedes was born in 287 BC in Syracuse, Sicily, where he lived most of his life and died in 212 BC during the city’s capture by the Romans. It is very likely that young Archimedes studied in Alexandria, Egypt, the centre of learning for the Greek world. He is remembered as the greatest mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor and astronomer of his time. According to the famous anecdote, when Archimedes figured out the physical law of buoyancy (“Archimedes’ principle”) while in his bath, such was his excitement that he forgot to dress and took to the street naked, shouting “eureka”. He pushed the boundaries in a number of fields, primarily in mathematics with his method for accurately approximating the value of π (“Archimedes’ constant”), but also in engineering with his law of the lever and in hydraulics with his major breakthroughs. He is credited with numerous inventions, such as the hydraulic screw pump (known as the Archimedes’ screw) and the compound pulley. He also famously used his ingenuity to help defend his city against the Romans, building a number of innovative defensive devices to destroy their warships.