Archimedes

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Archimedes (287BC-212BC) was truly one of the greatest mathematical minds of all time. The discoveries and inventions of Archimedes formed the basis of many of the fundamental concepts of modern physics and mathematics.

Born 287 BC Archimedes grew up in the thriving commercial hub of the port city of Syracuse, Sicily. His father, Phidias, was an astronomer and mathematician and it is thought his family enjoyed the life of aristocracy. Very little is known about his life, what is has been reported by the Roman writer and historian Plutarch. He studied for a short time in Alexandria, Egypt. Alexandria was a great place of learning, and at this time Euclid studied there and undoubtedly influenced Archimedes thinking. At the end of this study, Archimedes returned to Syracuse were he spent the rest of his life actively discovering and explaining important concepts. He is one of the few geniuses in history that enjoyed his own fame in his lifetime. Both his peers, his king, and even his enemies respected him for his work.

Most of Archimedes writings were lost in the burnings of the Library of Alexandria. What we know of Archimedes treatises is from three manuscripts. Two of them have been lost in history (one was last heard of in 1311, another in 1550) and the third is The Archimedes Palimpsest, now at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. (PW)

The Archimedes Palimpsest is very important and contains many ideas of Archimedes. During the medieval ages, the parchment on which his work was written was re-used as a prayer book. In order to reuse his parchment, the medieval monks palimpsested (in Greek “scraped off”) the text and then wrote over the remains. It is currently being refurnished at Rochester Institute of Techn...

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Wikipedia. Archimedes Spiral. Last updated.19 March 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes_spiral

Wikipedia. Archimedes. Last updated 1 April 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes

Archimedes Spiral. Last updated July 20, 2003. http://www.2dcurves.com/spiral/spiralaa.html)

NOVA. Infinite Secrets. Created September 2003. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/archimedes/pi.html

Math Refresher. Archimedes and the Area of a Circle. Created May 02, 2006. http://mathrefresher.blogspot.com/2006/05/archimedes-and-area-of-circle.html

Buzzle.com. Vishwas Purohit. Could Archimedes have lifted the Earth? Created 7/30/2004 http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/7-30-2004-57259.asp

J J O'Connor and E F Robertson. A History of Calculus. February 1996. http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/The_rise_of_calculus.html

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