Archimedes

By: Polina Tsapenko

History of Mathematics
9/22/2021
 Places/Dates of Birth and death

• Archimedes was a famous Greek inventor and mathematician

• Born in 287 c. in Sicily, Syracuse in present day Italy (BBC, 2014)
• At the time the region was referred to “Magna Graecia”
• Passed away in 212 BC, he was about 75 years of age
• Unknown if Archimedes was married or had children (The
Archimedes palimpsest, 2020)
 Family life/ Living conditions of a child

• Father is Phidias, no other information is determined (BBC, 2014)

• Mother is unknown
• Very little is known about Archimedes family life
• Archimedes was born in Syracuse which was known to be a power
center in the 3rd century period
• When Archimedes’ curiosity developed (The Archimedes palimpsest
2020)
• Archimedes was a bright, investigative thinking, proactive child who
was intrigued by his surroundings
Educational Background

• When Archimedes was in his young adult years, he traveled to

Egypt
• In Egypt, there were powerful centers of learning especially in the
city of Alexandria (BBC, 2014)
• In Alexandria, taught by students of Euclid.
• Studied astronomy, physics, and math (Carter, 2018)
• Later returned to Syracuse after
• Collaborated math ideas with the students of Euclid
 Most significant contributions to mathematics
• Discovered the Archimedes screw (machine for raising water)
(Carter, 2018)
• Developed the “method of exhaustion” (used to determine the
areas/volumes of figures with curved lines i.e circles, spheres,
pyramids)
• Heavily influenced by Euclid’s book of elements (Violatti, 2013)
• This pushed the further development of Calculus later down the road
• Came closest to determining the symbol “pi” (ratio between the
circumference and the diameter of a circle) (Carter, 2018)
• Published book called “The Sand Reckoner” which includes
information on how to represent very large numbers (Violatti, 2013)
Archimedes Screw
Gossip?

• King Hieron needed Archimedes to double check if a crown had all gold with
no silver (Violatti, 2013)
• King Hieron who was the King of Syracuse asked Archimedes to investigate the
matter
• Archimedes was thinking in a bathtub about this situation when he got an idea
• He noticed that the water was overflowing when his body was submerged
under water (Carter, 2018)
• This helped him solve the problem regarding the crown
• Archimedes ran naked through the roads and yelled “Eureka!”
• (Eureka is Greek for I have discovered a solution!)
Relevance of contributions in math present
day

• The influence that Archimedes had on calculus with his

contribution of “method of exhaustion”
• Archimedes screw design is used present day for plastic-reforming
machines and die-casting machines
• Archimedes had an influence of configuring the pulley system
which is used for elevators today (Violatti, 2013)
References

• All images from Bing search

• The Archimedes palimpsest. The History of Archimedes. (2020).
Retrieved September 22, 2021, from
http://archimedespalimpsest.org/about/history/archimedes.php.
• BBC. (2014). History - archimedes. BBC. Retrieved September 22, 2021,
from
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/archimedes.shtml.
• Carter, M. (2018). Archimedes. Famous Scientists. Retrieved September
22, 2021, from https://www.famousscientists.org/archimedes/.
• Violatti, C. (2013, June 24). Archimedes. Retrieved 2021, from
https://www.worldhistory.org/Archimedes/.