Archimedes: biography, discoveries, interesting facts and videos

😉 Greetings to the loyal readers and visitors of the site! In the article “Archimedes: biography, discoveries, interesting facts” – about the life of the ancient Greek mathematician, physicist and engineer. Years of life 287-212 BC An interesting and informative video material about the life of a scientist is posted at the end of the article.

Biography of Archimedes

The famous scientist of antiquity Archimedes was the son of the astronomer Phidius and received a good education in Alexandria, where he became acquainted with the works of Democritus, Eudoxus.

During the siege of Syracuse, Archimedes developed siege engines (flamethrowers), which destroyed a significant part of the enemy army. Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier, despite the orders of General Mark Marcellus.

A legend spread by the Greeks says that the great mathematician was stabbed to death when he wrote an equation in the sand, thereby wishing to counter his superiority to Roman incompetence. It is possible that his death was also a revenge for the damage done by his inventions to the Roman navy.

“Eureka!”

The most famous anecdote about Archimedes tells how he invented a method for determining the volume of an irregularly shaped object. Hieron II ordered the donation of the golden crown to the temple.

Archimedes had to determine if the jeweler had replaced some of the material with silver. He had to complete this task without damaging the crown, so he could not melt it in a simple form in order to calculate its density.

While bathing, the scientist noticed that the water level in the bathtub increases as he enters it. He realizes that this effect can be used to determine the volume of the crown.

From the point of view of this experiment, water has a practically constant volume. The crown will displace the amount of water with its own volume. Dividing the mass of the crown by the volume of displaced water gives its density. This density would be lower than that of gold if less expensive and lighter metals were added to it.

Archimedes, jumping out of the bath, runs naked down the street. He is so excited about his discovery and forgets to get dressed. He loudly shouts “Eureka!” (“I found”). The experience was successful and proved that silver was indeed added to the crown.

The story of the golden crown is not present in any of the famous works of Archimedes. In addition, the practical applicability of the described method is questionable due to the need for the utmost accuracy in measuring changes in the water level.

The sage most likely used the principle known in hydrostat as Archimedes’ law, and later described in his treatise on floating bodies.

According to him, a body immersed in a liquid is subjected to a force equal to the weight of the liquid displaced by it. Using this principle, you can compare the density of a gold crown with the density of gold.

Heat ray

Archimedes may have used a group of mirrors acting together as a parabolic mirror to set fire to the ships attacking Syracuse. Lucian, a XNUMXnd century writer, writes that Archimedes destroyed ships with fire.

In the XNUMXth century, Antimyus of Thrall called the weapon of Archimedes “burning glass”. The device, also called “Thermim Beam Archimedes”, was used to focus sunlight on ships, thus illuminating them.

This alleged weapon during the Renaissance became the subject of controversy over its actual existence. René Descartes dismissed it as impossible. Modern scientists are trying to recreate the described effects using only the tools available during Archimedes’ time.

There is speculation that a large number of well-polished bronze screens acting as mirrors could be used to focus the sun’s rays on a ship using the parabolic mirror principle.

Archimedes’ experiments in the modern world

In 1973, Greek scientist Ioannis Sakas conducted an Archimedes heat ray experiment at the naval base in Skaramag. He used 70 copper-clad mirrors measuring 1,5 by 1 m.They were aimed at a plywood model of the ship at a distance of 50 m.

When the mirrors are focused, the mock ship ignites in a few seconds. Previously, ships were painted with resinous paint, which probably contributed to the ignition.

In October 2005, a group of MIT students conducted an experiment with 127 square mirrors measuring 30 x 30 cm, focusing on a wooden ship model at a distance of about 30 meters.

The flame appears on a part of the ship, in clear weather with a cloudless sky and if the ship remains stationary for about 10 minutes.

The same group is repeating the MythBusters TV experiment using a wooden fishing boat in San Francisco. There is some ignition again. Myth Hunters define the experience as a failure due to the long time and ideal weather conditions required to ignite.

If Syracuse is in the east, then the Roman fleet attacks in the morning for optimal focusing of light. At the same time, conventional weapons such as flaming arrows or projectiles fired from a catapult can be used much more easily to sink a ship at such a short distance.

The ancient Greek scientist is considered by many scientists to be one of the greatest mathematicians in history, along with Newton, Gauss and Euler. His contribution to geometry and mechanics is enormous; he is considered one of the pioneers of mathematical analysis.

He systematically applies mathematics to natural sciences, technical discoveries, and inventions. His scientific contributions were studied and described by Eratosthenes, Conon and Dosifed.

Archimedes’ works

• the mathematician calculated the surface of a parabolic segment and the volumes of various mathematical bodies;
• he considered several curves and spirals, one of which bears his name: Archimedes spiral;
• gave a definition of semi-regular multistats called Archimedes;
• presented a proof of the limitlessness of an array of natural numbers (also known as Archimedes’ axiom).

Related video: “Archimedes: biography, discoveries”, fictional and educational film “The Lord of the Numbers”

This article “Archimedes: biography, discoveries, interesting facts” will be useful to schoolchildren and students. Until next time! 😉 Come in, run in, drop in! Subscribe to the newsletter of articles to your email. mail. Fill out the form above: name and e-mail.