Archimedes Most notably he is known for the Archimedes Screw, named after him.

The story goes that a ship was commissioned named the Syacusia, Archimedes was tasked with removing leaking water below the water line. His machine was a screw shaped blade inside a cylinder turned by hand.

The story goes that a gold crown had been made for King Hiero ii, who had supplied the pure gold used. Archimedes was tasked with finding if any silver had been mixed in. He had to solve this without damaging the crown, so he could not melt it down into a regular shape to measure its density. Apparently when he was taking a bath he noticed the water level rise as he got in, he realised this effect could be used to measure the volume of an irregular shape. For this to have worked though you have to assume water is incompressible, like ignoring air resistance in projectiles. By dividing the mass of the crown by the volume of water that was displaced when submerged the density of the crown could be figured out. If something had been mixed in then the density would be lower than that of pure gold which could be measured much more easily. The story goes that he ran into the streets naked shouting eureka. The test proved positive as silver had been mixed in. However this story however imaginative and funny it is does not show up in the known works of Archimedes. As well as the practicality of a test like it, as the accuracy he would have had to measure the water displaced would have had to of been more than was capable at the time. An easier solution to practice at the time would have been to apply the principle he also invented, Archimedes principle. It states that a body immersed in a fluid experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced. Using this he could measure the density by using a weighing scale. Balancing the crown with pure gold, then submerging the scale. The difference in density would cause the scale to tip. So if silver had been mixed in, it would rise. If not it would stay the same. Another interesting tale of Archimedes was the heat ray, used in the Siege of Syracuse, where Archimedes would burn enemy ships as they were made out of wood at the time by reflecting the suns rays. As the tv show Mythbusters proved, it was impossible or very highly unlikely to achieve this effect especially to recreate it. This was because the length of time and the ideal weather conditions needed to create such a temperature was highly unlikely. It was also pointed out that as Syracuse faces the sea towards the east the roman fleet would of had to attack in the morning to get the desired effect. There have been many disputes to these claims, most notably the one where the Mythbusters team placed the mirrors on the floor with no backing. This caused them to have a slight concave shape, meaning that the full power of the array was not used and that is why it failed to catch fire.

Archimedes is very famous for his work in maths. He is very well known for his ability to estimate numbers to a very high degree of accuracy and even the limits to where the number is. He was able to estimate Pi by drawing a circle, then a hexagon just a bit larger, then another just a bit smaller than the circle. He would progressively double the number of sides of each regular polygon, calculating the length of each side at each step. As the number of sides increases it became a more accurate approximation of a circle. After 4 steps when the polygon had 96 sides each, he was able to determine the value of Pi lay between 3.1429 and 3.1408 very close to its actual value of 3.1416. Another interesting story about him called The Sand Reckoner, Archimdes decided to acalulate the number of grains of sand the universe could contain. While doing this he challenged the thought that the number of grains of sand was too large to be counted. He wrote an entry about this, calling out King Gelo son of Hiero ii on this notion. For this he devised a system of counting based on the myriad (meaning 10,000). He proposed a system of number using powers of a myriad of myriads. 10,000 x 10,000 which is equal to 100 million and found out the number of grains of sand required to fill the universe would be 8 vigintillion. A made up word yes, but there has been a case made for it and many like it. I guess in the end all words are made up. It represents a value therefore it is a word and has appeared in many dictionaries. 8 vigintillion is equal to 8x1063 in standard form.