Archimedes' Life and Accomplishments

1620 Words4 Pages

Archimedes is a well-known scientist, who started modern day science. Archimedes studied and influenced many areas of science and mathematics. Some of the areas he influenced include; astronomy, mechanics, geometry, hydrostatics, and many more. Archimedes discoveries and inventions are very helpful in the world of both mathematics and science. Many of his ideas and discoveries are the foundations of the things we know about in both science and math.

Archimedes was born in Syracuse, an island of Sicily. He was born in 287 B.C. and was a citizen of Greece. When Archimedes was born an olive branch was hung on the doorstep of Phidias, the father of Archimedes and an astronomer, to announce he had a son. The birth of Archimedes was celebrated by two festivals. The first festival was when he was five days old. His nurse ran around the floor of the fireplace in the living room with the family and slaves following her. This ceremony put Archimedes under the protection of the gods forever. The tenth day marked the second festival and is when Archimedes was giving his name. He just had a first name that was carefully chosen to bring him good luck. After Archimedes was named, the guests gave gifts as an offering to the gods, and a feast was served. Archimedes would grow up to be one of the best scientists the world had ever known (Bendick 1962).

When Archimedes was older he was always working his mind by performing experiments to gain knowledge or to prove his theories. Many of his theories were new and not something discovered by scientist that came before him. He only had the basic principles of a mathematics teacher, Euclid, which was not much information. Archimedes only knew that a straight line is the shortest distance compared ...

... middle of paper ...

... the soldier to go away. The soldier, upset with Archimedes, put his foot on the diagram and laughed. Archimedes not realizing who the soldier was stabbed his foot with his drawing stick. The soldier then killed Archimedes with his sword. When Marcellus heard this he honored him with a ceremony with Archimedes friends and family. On Archimedes tomb was the engraved figure of the cylinder and sphere ratio that Archimedes thought was an important discovery.

In conclusion, Archimedes is a scientist who changed the world. We still use his inventions today in science and math. He discovered things that scientist before him could not figure out. He took math and science to new levels and laid down a foundation for new discoveries. Without his impact in the world of science and math we would not know the things we do today. Archimedes forever changed science and math.

More about Archimedes' Life and Accomplishments

Open Document