Historical Figures Codexery

Archimedes

Ancient Greek mathematician and inventor of Syracuse.

He is widely regarded as the finest mathematician from antiquity and a founder of mathematical physics.[1] His life details are obscure, and a lost biography attributed to Heraclides Lembus is now doubted by modern scholarship.[2] Based on John Tzetzes' statement that Archimedes lived 75 years before his death in 212 BC, his birth is estimated around 287 BC in the seaport city of Syracuse, Sicily.[3]

Quick Facts

Birthplace
Syracuse, Sicily
Field
  • Mathematics
  • Physics
  • Astronomy
  • Mechanics
  • Engineering

Facts from the source article.

Life and work

Archimedes gave his father's name as Phidias, an astronomer, in the Sand-Reckoner.[3][4] He corresponded with mathematicians in Alexandria, writing in Doric Greek.[5] According to Vitruvius, Archimedes solved King Hiero II's golden wreath problem by noticing water displacement in a bath and shouting "Eureka!".[6] The Carmen de Ponderibus gives a different account using a hydrostatic balance to test the crown.[7]

Athenaeus describes how Archimedes launched the huge ship Syracusia for Hiero II.[8] Accounts of his death vary: Livy says a Roman soldier killed him while he drew figures in the dust.[9] Cicero found Archimedes' neglected tomb in Syracuse, which bore a sculpture of a sphere and cylinder.[10] Archimedes devised a number system in The Sand Reckoner to count grains of sand needed to fill the universe.[11][12]

During the Second Punic War in 214 BC, when Syracuse switched allegiance from Rome to Carthage, the Roman army under Marcus Claudius Marcellus attempted to take the city, and Archimedes allegedly oversaw war machines that greatly delayed the Romans.[13][14] In a 24-proposition work addressed to Dositheus, Archimedes demonstrates by two methods that the area bounded by a parabola and a straight line equals 4/3 the area of a triangle sharing the same base and height.[15]

What the cited sources add

The same source reports that the palimpsest includes The Method of Mechanical Theorems, where Archimedes used balancing to derive properties.[16] Calkins' work attributes the Cattle Problem to Archimedes and notes that A. Amthor solved the difficult version in 1880.[17] Carroll's account explains that Archimedes' number system in The Sand Reckoner could express numbers up to 8 × 10⁶³.[12] The Graeco Roman Puzzles account states that the 14-piece puzzle opposite is supposed to have been invented by Archimedes.[18]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Father of mathematics: Jane Muir, Of Men and Numbers: The Story of the Great Mathematicians, p 19.; James H. Williams Jr., Fundamentals of Applied Dynamics, p 30., Carl B. Boyer, Uta C. Merzbach, A History of Mathematics, p 111., Stuart Hollingdale, Makers of ; Hirshfeld, "Eureka Man: The Life and Legacy of Archimedes", Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009, p. 206 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Commentarius in dimensionem circuli (Archimedis opera omnia ed. Heiberg-Stamatis (1915), vol. 3, p. 228); Commentaria in conica (Apollonii Pergaei quae Graece e (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Plutarch, Life of Marcellus; Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10; Acerbi, "New Dictionary of Scientific Biography", Scribner, 2008, p. 85–91; Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Newman, "The World of Mathematics", Simon & Schuster, 1956 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Acerbi 2018, p. 279; Wilson, "Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece", Psychology Press, 2006, p. 77 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10; Vitruvius, De Architectura, Book IX, 3; Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10; Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10; Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Metrologicorum Scriptorum reliquiae, ed. F. Hultsch (Leipzig 1864), II, 88; Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10; Carmen de Ponderibus, lines 124-162; Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10; Van Helden, Al, "The Galileo Project: Hydrostatic Balance", Rice University (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10; Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, V.40-45; Plutarch, Life of Marcellus 7-8; Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10; Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10; Heronis Opera Vol II, 1, 256, III 306; Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10; Pappus of Alexandria, Synagoge Book VIII (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10; Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Book XXV, 31 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rorres, "Tomb of Archimedes: Sources", Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Carroll, "The Sand Reckoner", Weber State University (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  12. Carroll, "The Sand Reckoner", Weber State University. facts only, no text reused. physics.weber.edu
  13. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10; Life of Marcellus, 25-27 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  14. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10; Dijksterhuis 1987, p. 10 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  15. Wikipedia, "Archimedes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Archimedes, "The works of Archimedes", Dover, 1897 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  16. Miller, Mary K., "Reading Between the Lines", March 2007. facts only, no text reused. smithsonianmag.com
  17. Calkins, "Archimedes' Problema Bovinum", Andrews University. facts only, no text reused. andrews.edu
  18. "Graeco Roman Puzzles", Gianni A. Sarcone and Marie J. Waeber. facts only, no text reused. archimedes-lab.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Archimedes (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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