Kyle Rodriguez

Archimedes’s life

Though little is known about the life of Archimedes, a brief summary of his life can still be formed. Archimedes was and can still be named one of the greatest mathematicians to ever walk on the face of Earth. Archimedes was born in Syracuse, Sicily in 287 B.C. With his father being an astronomer already, he had a solid foundation when it came to his interest in mathematics and astronomy. When it came to his childhood, Archimedes’s family was well off in the sense that he could choose what he wanted to study without having any repercussions later in life. Knowing this, Archimedes was able to follow what he enjoyed at the time before he decided to delve into the life of mathematics, and those topics happened to be music and poetry. He always had an interest in astronomy, but chose to look into music and poetry first before heading to , Egypt for his formal education since he felt he could no longer learn as much as he would if sent to the school established by Greek mathematician, Euclid.

After staying in Alexandra, Egypt for several years to study and it is rumored that Archimedes actually studied with the successor of Euclid while staying in Alexandra. When Archimedes moved back to Syracuse at the age of 22 to continue his work in mathematics and to live back in his hometown, there was more warfare between Rome and Carthage to control Sicily. This is time where he grew close to the current King, Hiero, and his son Gelo. Hiero considered Archimedes a ”National Treasure” due to the complex problems King Hiero would have Archimedes solve. This was an appropriate response since Archimedes would get so into his problems that he would forget to eat! He would even go to the extreme by drawing figures on his body after applying olive oil.

With Archimedes staying in Syracuse for the remainder of his life, there is not much else to say besides the feats of mathematics that he provided for the King. When it comes to how Archimedes died, he was completely oblivious to that fact that there was war being waged outside of his window. With Syracuse losing the fight, Marcellus took the city and with the amount of respect he had for Archimedes, he ordered his soldiers to bring him to his chambers. Though when the soldier went to go retrieve the mathematician, with many different stories to how Archimedes was slain, the most known one is that he simply responded with ”no” and ”do not disturb my circles.” Which relates to the circles he had made in sand that the soldier was supposedly close to. While others say that the soldier entered the room and threatened to kill him. Archimedes then looked back and explained that if he were killed that his work would be left imperfect, but with no pity, the solider drew his sword and used it to kill Archimedes. Archimedes’s mathematical works

Archimedes’s mathematical life began when he moved to Alexandria, Egypt to pursue is education. While Archimedes was in Egypt, he invented a screw that turned in a way that lifted water out of whatever it was being turned in. The reason behind this invention was due the ”Syracusia” a ship being an extremely large vessel, would leak enough water through the hull and this invention prevented the ship from going down. The archimedes’s screw worked by having a spiral inside a hollow cylinder that allowed water to be transported up as the screw was turned. This invention was the first of its kind and lead into the research of other pulleys and levers.

At around 260 B.C, at the age of 27, Archimedes went to the King and explain the importance of pulleys and levers. Though this information was known and were most likely basic tools, with his explanations of the potential that these tools possessed initiated the work that lead to more advanced levers and pulleys. Other such inventions that came from his intelligence in the fields of mathematics and physics are the ”Death ray” which is believed to be rumored, ”Archimedes claw”, hydrostatics which is the the study of fluids at rest, calculus and others. His work in calculus predicted the integral calculus about 2,000 years before Newton and Leibniz. While one of his most famous works involve him finding the exact value of pi for which he got 22/7. Though this is an incredible feat, it was not his only. He also proved that the volume of a sphere is two-thirds the volume of a circumscribed cylinder.

The job that he is mostly known for is the test of a not fully gold crown. King Hiero the second wanted a fully gold crown, so he gave a goldsmith the correct amount of gold that would be needed to construct the crown. Though he received the crown that looked exactly how it should be. King Heiro was still skeptical that the goldsmith took out some gold and replaced it with silver so that it would weigh the same, but he could keep some gold to himself. He then called upon Archimedes to somehow test his theory of being scammed and it worked in his favor. This is when Archimedes found the solution by stepping into his bath and seeing it overflow. Which gave him the idea that the reason the water rose was due to the additional space being added to the water. Taking this into consideration with the gold crown, he would put the same amount of gold that is supposed to be in the crown, add water until it reaches the brim and then take the gold out. He would then replace the gold that was supposed to be in the crown with the crown itself and if it overflowed, then that would mean there were other metals used for the crown. When he did this, it was shown that there were other metals in the crown, because the water ended up overflowing instead of meeting the brim.

2 Collaboration with other scholars

Being one of the greatest scientist to ever live, it was not the fact that Archimedes did not work with other scientist, it was more of a he already had the answered and teased other mathematicians with his answers. Though when going to receive his formal education, it is said that Archimedes worked with the successors of Euclid. There was not much math going on at the time of Archimedes’s life just because his work revolved more about his innovation and him proving how they worked. Through his work he was able to provide decades of mathematical work after his death, but his work did not involve other scientist.

3 Historical events that marked Archimedes’s life.

Archimedes’s life had several moments where his ideas came from what was around him. The most known historical event that is known about Archimedes’s life is when the King asked him to find a way that his crown was solid gold. When he was given this task, he simply went to go take a bath and got the idea of water displacement as he saw that the water rose as he entered. This is what originally gave him the idea to take the amount of gold that was supposed to be in the crown and the crown and sink them both in the same amount of water to see which one made the water overflow.

This moment in his life is the single most famous moment to have occurred during his lifetime. This is commonly attributed to people saying ”” now and days when they discover something and it is of great importance. Though this may not be the most important event to mark Archimedes’s life, it is by far the most famous event that people of today know.

Other historical events that happened during his lifetime was the invasion that ultimately lead to his death. Though Archimedes tried his best by creating weapons of war that could ward off invaders, it did not do enough as he was later killed because of an invasion he did not know was occurring.

4 Significant historical events around the world during Archimedes’s life

An important fact to remember about Archimedes’s life is that half of his life involved war. Throughout his life, there were many acts of war around him while he was making an impact in the mathematic world. Such examples are, King Hiero executing a military takeover of Syracuse and the end of the First Punic War. The Punic Wars were fought to gain control over the islands of Corsica and Sicily. While Archimedes was alive, Hiero had signed a peace treaty with the Romans after Syracuse was threatened. While the first war did not end after 22 years of the treaty, Rome ended up controlling the land of Sicily outside of a small area that surrounded Syracuse.

After twenty-three years of no war, the second Punic war started for control over Syracuse and both Hiero and Gelo die after three years. Though there was a third Punic war, Archimedes was not alive to witness it. These were the two biggest historical events that were happening around Archimedes and ended up dying during the invasion of Sicily.

When we look at other parts of the world, we see that in North America the Olmecs were being replaced by other civilizations called the Zapotec and Mixtec. With farming starting to become well established in the area, hunting was still an important factor for food. Egypt becomes ruled by the Greeks which is named the ”Ptolemy dynasty” and the civilization of Nubia was still developing. While in East Asia, even with century- long wars happening between several states and known to the Chinese as the ”Warring States” period, led to one state taking over all of Ancient China which was known as the Han dynasty.

5 Significant mathematical progress during the Archimedes’s lifetime

Though Archimedes did many amazing mathematical feats while he was alive. The greatest mathematical feat that he did was calculating the number for pi. The steps he took to get to his conclusion was in my eyes just so questionable. To go from a triangle in the center in the circle and another triangle on the outside of the circle. Then proceed to put a polygon on the inside and outside until you reach 96 sides of a polygon. While the second greatest feat in my eyes was when the King asked for him to figure out a way to see if his crown was completely gold or if the goldsmith took some as a profit and added other metals.

When it came to solving pi, the reason this one had to be the most important feat while he was alive is because with my knowledge of math, pi is the most used symbol in mathematics. Solving pi could easily be the biggest breakthrough during his time that allowed us to continue our mathematic journey and without it we would not have been able to discover new areas of math and proofs.

With the discovery of hydrostatics, we are now able to offer explanations when it comes to atmospheric pressure changing with altitude and why certain objects float in water. With the biggest one being why the surface of water is always flat and horizontal in any container it is put in.

Archimedes had many feats in his life, such as being an inventor in both for making certain actions easier to defending the city he lived in. He created weapons of destruction for his time and he also solved theories that were later proved during Newton’s time.

6 Connections between history and the development of mathematics

During Archimedes’s time, mathematics was not used as much as it is used today. Archimedes essentially laid out the building blocks for mathematics if we do not consider the work of Pythagoras. It could be said that Archimedes was the first pure mathematician that has actual proof of his mathematical achievements while the same could not be said for Pythagoras. With the work that Archimedes provided for Sicily, the work that was done was later used again to further mathematics and this is why without Archimedes, there could have been a detrimental impact on what we know about mathematics today. If we look at the time Archimedes was able to provide such advancements in mathematics and compare it to what we have done today with out math, the ratio of work clearly shows that Archimedes as the winner. If the same amount of work had been done today, for example, finding out a way to use magnetism and connect it to vehicles. That would be able to compare to the work that Archimedes did for his time, because we think of flying cars as a thing of the future. While people back in the day thought that lifting extremely heavy objects was deemed impossible, except for one man, Archimedes.

7 Remarks

Archimedes’s life was interesting due to the creations and help he provided while he was alive. Through his work, the progression in mathematics increased dramatically as Archimedes was ahead of his time. To be ahead of your time and have a city depend on you and your inventions says a lot about a person. The fact that this was the situation that Archimedes impresses me to the point where I wonder if it is possible to ever achieve such greatness again. Though many mathematics has come to the point where little can be done, a breakthrough that changes the way we think about mathematics will surely happen during our lifetime as there is still much to be done.

I do not have much to say about the life of Archimedes as nothing popped out in my eyes. Though he lived a remarkable life and did many important feats while he was alive. It is hard to show excitement for a man that I did not personally know, but I do appreciate the feats that he was able to accomplish while alive. To make a proportional analogy to his work, to make an impact as he did in this time would mean to create a levitating device without the use of an engine.

8 References

Holt, Lloyd. ”Archimedes.” Archimedes. Lloyd Holt, n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.

”Archimedes’ Approximation of Pi.” Archimedes’ Approximation of Pi. N.p., 3 Aug. 1997. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.

Violatti, Cristian. ”Archimedes.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia, 24 June 2013. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.

Toomer, Gerald J. ”Archimedes.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 21 Sept. 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.

”Archimedes of Syracuse.” Archimedes of Syracuse. Don Allen, 19 Feb. 1997. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.

”Archimedes.” Archimedes. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.

”Life of Archimedes.” Life Of Archimedes Timeline. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2016. http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Archimedes.html http://famous-mathematicians.org/archimedes/ http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/clindsey/mhf4404/archimedes/archimedes.html https://www.math.nyu.edu/ crorres/Archimedes/Timeline/Timeline.html http://www.ancient.eu/Archimedes/ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Archimedes http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/People/Archimedes/ https://www.preceden.com/timelines/30497-life-of-archimedes- http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/clindsey/mhf4404/archimedes/archimedes.html

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