If only... Oh, if the great states of antiquity would pay a little more attention to their glorious inventors - at least in the same way that current governments do not skimp on financing high-tech military programs, then - who knows what language we would be talking to you now and in what country did you live in? What would happen if Leonardo da Vinci or Nikola Tesla got the opportunity to develop their talents to the full extent?

About and da Vinci we have already written. It's time to pay tribute to another, perhaps the very first technical genius of mankind. A great mathematician, physicist, engineer and astronomer, underestimated during his lifetime and accidentally killed by an illiterate soldier - he could hasten the scientific and technological revolution by almost two thousand years, if ...

Who are you, Mr. Archimedes?

Archimedes (artist Domenico Fetti, 17th century).

Any stories about great people usually begin with their biography. Alas, in the case of Archimedes, we will have to be content with only a set of unconfirmed facts. There are many legends about the life of this scientist, but there is very little reliable information.

The birthplace of the inventor was Sicily, the city of Syracuse. He spent most of his life there. The date of his birth - 287 BC - was established on the basis of the testimony of the Byzantine historian John Price (12th century), who wrote that Archimedes lived for 75 years and died in 212 BC.

In his writings, the inventor mentioned that his father was the astronomer and mathematician Phidias, who came from a noble Syracusan family. Apparently, at a young age the boy was sent to study in Alexandria, the largest cultural center of that time. In the future, he actively communicated with the mathematicians of the Alexandrian school (for example, with Erastofen), and this suggests the idea that Archimedes used the works of the Alexandrian Euclid as "textbooks". The subject of his further research also coincided with the "Euclidean science" and significantly developed it - this is, first of all, the theory of numbers, as well as planimetry and geometry.

Having studied in Alexandria, Archimedes returned home and got a “job” at the court of his distant relative, the Syracusan tyrant Heron II. There are many legends about how Archimedes performed the most ingenious tasks of Heron, but in reality the ruler, most likely, did not attach much practical importance to his research and patronized the outstanding scientist only because his presence in Syracuse significantly increased the cultural status of the city.

Being “under the wing” of an enlightened monarch for most of his life, the inventor could work calmly - and he worked, and so fruitfully that today the word “Archimedes” is unknown only to those who live in the forest, pray to the wheel and faint at the form of an airplane.

Syracuse is one of the most influential and beautiful cities in the ancient Mediterranean. It was founded in the 8th century BC under the name Sirako (“swamp”, because there really was a swamp near the city). Geron II wisely ruled Syracuse for 50 years: he avoided major wars, developed jurisprudence, sciences and arts. His heir - the young Jerome - ascended the throne in 215 and almost immediately led the city to collapse, quarreling with Rome. Syracuse fell due to the fact that some of the townspeople decided to negotiate the terms of a peace treaty and opened a small door in the wall for the Romans, but they burst inside and quickly crushed the resistance.

The troops of the Roman consul Marcellus besieged Syracuse for a very long time (about 8 months). The reason for the delay was allegedly that the great scientist, in the face of the threat of invasion, switched from pure mathematics to mechanics and began to create amazing combat devices to protect his native city. Moreover - according to some evidence, Archimedes personally led the defense of the city and disposed of its technical resources.

The Romans were not stupid. Having appreciated the defensive innovations of the Greeks, Marcellus ordered his soldiers not to touch the brilliant engineer when capturing the city, apparently planning to lure him into his service. It is not difficult to imagine what kind of military mechanisms Archimedes could have invented while working for the practical and cruel Romans.

However, history decreed otherwise. According to legend, one of the legionnaires found a scientist in the garden of his house, when he was studying the drawings on the sand, not paying any attention to street fighting. Either the Roman did not recognize this Greek, or he deliberately violated the order of the commander (they say that Archimedes told the soldier not to touch his drawings - “circles”, but in what exact terms he did this remains unclear) - in any case, the greatest mind of his time was simply hacked to death on the spot.

Death of Archimedes. Engraving from an 18th century Italian book.

Plutarch (45-120) reports that, according to the will of Archimedes, a ball enclosed in a cylinder was placed on his grave, indicating that the ratio of their volumes is 2/3. In his work "On the Sphere and the Cylinder" Archimedes proved the same multiplicity of the ratio of the surface area of ​​these two figures.

Word and deed

It is enough just to take a glimpse of the “know-how” of Archimedes to understand how much this man was ahead of his time and what our world could turn into if high technologies were assimilated in antiquity as quickly as they are today. Archimedes specialized in mathematics and geometry, two of the most important sciences that underlie technological progress. The revolutionary nature of his research is evidenced by the fact that historians consider Archimedes one of the three greatest mathematicians of mankind (the other two are Newton and Gauss).

In terms of innovation, this Greek was head and shoulders above all European mathematicians until the Renaissance. In a society where a completely terrible system of calculation was used, and in a language where the word "myriad" (ten thousand) was synonymous with "infinity", he developed a clear science of numbers and "counted" them up to 10 64 .

Archimedes laid the foundations for integral calculus and the theory of ultrasmall numbers. He proved that the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is equal to the ratio of the area of ​​a circle to the square of its radius. The scientist, of course, did not call this ratio the "Pi number", but quite accurately determined its value in the range from 3 + 10/71 (about 3.1408) to 3 + 1/7 (about 3.1429).

Only a few treatises of Archimedes have survived to our time. Most of them perished in two fires in the Library of Alexandria - only a few translations into Arabic and Latin have survived. For example, in the work "On the balance of planes" the author studied the centers of gravity of various figures. There is a legend according to which Heron asked Archimedes to visually illustrate the "effect" of the lever, known from his famous phrase "Give me a fulcrum and I will turn the whole world!" (Plutarch quotes her differently: "If there were another Earth, I would stand on it and move this one").

The inventor ordered to pull a large ship ashore and fill it with cargo, after which he stood near the chain hoist (reel block) and began to pull the rope tied to the ship without any visible effort. The latter, to the surprise of those present, "floated" on land, as on water.

Other works are no less significant: “On Conoids and Spheroids”, “On Spirals”, “Measurement of a Circle”, “Squaring a Parabola”, “Psammit” (“Calculation of Grains of Sand” - here the scientist proposed a way to find out the number of grains of sand contained in the volume of everything of the world, that is, he described a system for writing super-large numbers).

Separately, it should be said about his work in the field of mechanics. Here he really was a pioneer, in many ways reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci.

According to Diodorus Siculus, Roman slaves in Spain drained entire rivers using a device that Archimedes developed during a visit to Egypt. It was the so-called "Archimedes screw" - a powerful and at the same time very simple screw pump. However, some evidence suggests that a similar device was invented 300 years earlier to irrigate the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (the so-called "Gardens of Babylon").

Archimedes allegedly invented a mosaic game - "stomachion" (from flat bone pieces of different geometric shapes it is necessary to make recognizable figures - a person, an animal, etc.). He is also credited with the creation of the odometer (a device that measures the distance traveled).

During the siege of Syracuse, Archimedes built many amazing devices, of which two of the most effective can be distinguished. The first is the "Paw of Archimedes", a unique lifting machine and a prototype of a modern crane. Outwardly, it looked like a lever protruding beyond the city wall and equipped with a counterweight. Polybius wrote in World History that if a Roman ship tried to land near Syracuse, this “manipulator” under the control of a specially trained machinist grabbed its bow and turned it over (the weight of Roman triremes exceeded 200 tons, while the penter could reach all 500) , flooding attackers.

A crane is also a weapon!

The Romans were shocked to see Archimedes' machines in action. Plutarch writes that sometimes it came to the point of absurdity: when they saw some kind of rope or log on the wall of Syracuse, the invincible Roman legionnaires fled in a panic, thinking that another infernal mechanism would now be used against them.

Similar machines knocked down Roman siege ladders from the walls, while Archimedes' long-range and incredibly accurate catapults bombarded their ships with stones. But even more surprising was the second "surprise" - a beam weapon.

Realizing the futility of trying to take the city by storm, the Roman fleet (according to various sources, about 60 ships) anchored near the city. According to legend, Archimedes constructed a large mirror, or handed out small concave mirrors to the soldiers (historians do not have a single point of view - sometimes polished copper shields even appear here), with the help of which he “concentrated” sunlight on the enemy fleet and burned it to the ground.

Cicero wrote that after Syracuse was plundered, Marcellus took out two devices from there - "spheres", the creation of which is attributed to Archimedes. The first was a kind of planetarium, and the second modeled the movement of the stars across the sky, which suggested the presence of a complex gear mechanism in it.

Until recently, this evidence was considered doubtful, but in 1900, near the Greek island of Antikythera, at a depth of 43 meters, the remains of a ship were found, from which the remains of a certain device were raised - an “advanced” system of bronze gears dating back to 87 BC. This proves that Archimedes could well create a complex mechanism - a kind of "computer" of ancient times.

Antikythera - perhaps the oldest gear mechanism in the world

Hyperboloid engineer Archimedes

Could a cunning Greek really feed the fish in the sea near Syracuse with fried Romans? This myth has been tested several times - and with varying results. The most interesting was the experiment of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, conducted in 2005.

Ancient sources describe the design of the Archimedean "hyperboloid" in a very contradictory way - whether it was bronze shields, or a giant reflector. The researchers suggested that Archimedes could hardly have made a huge (and therefore very vulnerable) reflector, and chose the option with shields, replacing them with 127 mirrors about 30 by 30 centimeters in size.

The experimenters did not aim to completely recreate the conditions for using the "hyperboloid". The model of the ship was made of solid oak, although more combustible woods, such as cypress, were used to build Roman ships. The ship's sides were dry, although in reality they are open to the waves. The distance to the target is 30 meters, but in fact it was much more (at least the distance of the arrow). In addition, the layout remained stationary, and the Roman ships moved slightly, even when anchored in the bay of Syracuse.

Mirrors were pointed at the ship and covered with curtains. A problem immediately arose - the "weapon" was on stands, and not in the hands of the Greek soldiers. The sight had to be constantly adjusted, because due to the movement of the Sun across the sky, the rays shifted by 1.5 meters every 10 minutes. Clouds also did not facilitate the work - the power of the "laser" periodically fell.

What came of it? "Weapon of Vengeance" worked for only 10 minutes, but the effect exceeded all expectations. Immediately after the opening of the mirrors, the wood began to char, then smoke appeared and almost immediately after it - a bunch of bright flames. The fire was extinguished after 3 minutes. A through hole appeared in the side of the ship.

The mobility of real targets, the long distance to them, the poor reflective qualities of bronze - all this speaks against the legend of Archimedes. However, the inventor had many reflectors at his disposal (the number of soldiers with polished shields on the walls of the city was in the hundreds) and he was not limited in time. Archimedes really could achieve the effect of a "laser", but not in quality, but in quantity.

In the experiment, the mirrors were flat, which cannot be said about the shields of the Greeks. If the reflectors they used were concave, their "range" would exceed 30 meters.

Too little historical information has survived to recreate the weapons of Archimedes as they really could be. It is reasonable to talk not about the refutation of the myth, but about the theoretical possibility of a "solar laser". The experiment showed that physics does not contradict history. This inspires optimism, so the legend of the "death rays" of Archimedes can be considered conditionally true.

• Modern Syracuse has almost no traces of its former greatness. Tourists are often taken to the so-called "Tomb of Archimedes" in the Grotticelli necropolis. In fact, this Roman burial does not contain the remains of the famous scientist.
• The Archimedes Palimpsest is a Christian book compiled in the 12th century from "pagan" parchments from the 10th century. To do this, the old letters were washed away from them, and a church text was written on the material received. Fortunately, the palimpsest (from the Greek palin - again and psatio - I erase) was made of poor quality, so the old letters were visible through the light (and even better - under ultraviolet light). In 1906, it turned out that these were three previously unknown works of Archimedes.
• There is a legend about how King Heron instructed Archimedes to check if the jeweler had mixed silver into his golden crown. The integrity of the product could not be violated. Archimedes could not complete this task for a long time - the solution came by chance when he lay down in the bathroom and suddenly noticed the effect of liquid displacement (he shouted: “Eureka!” - “Found it!”, And ran naked into the street). He realized that the volume of a body immersed in water is equal to the volume of water displaced, and this helped him to expose the deceiver.
• One of the large lunar craters (82 kilometers wide) was named after Archimedes.

* * *

Archimedes is the most suitable candidate for creating the image of an ancient inventor who designed steam tanks and flying machines hundreds of years before the birth of Christ (this genre is usually called "sandalpunk" - by analogy with "cyberpunk" or "dieselpunk", where the word "sandal" means sandalwood, as well as sandals in which the ancient Greeks walked). By today's standards, the writings of Archimedes are high school level. However, do not forget that they were made over 2000 years ago and were ahead of their time by at least the 17th century. Thanks to this, the hero of our article can rightfully be called one of the greatest geniuses of mankind.

The biography of Archimedes is full of white spots. Historians know little about the life of an outstanding scientist, since the chronicles of that period contain only scarce information, but the description of his works tells in sufficient detail about achievements in the field of physics, mathematics, astronomy and technology. His work was far ahead of its time and was appreciated only centuries later, when scientific progress reached the appropriate level.

Childhood and youth

A brief biography of Archimedes is available to researchers. He was born in 287 BC. e. in the city of Syracuse, which was located on the east coast of the island of Sicily and at that time was a Greek colony. The father of the future scientist, a mathematician and astronomer named Phidias, from childhood instilled in his son a love of science. Hieron, who later became the ruler of Syracuse, was a close relative of the family, so the boy was provided with an excellent education.

Then, feeling a lack of theoretical knowledge, the young man left for Alexandria, where the most brilliant minds of that era worked. Archimedes spent many hours in the Library of Alexandria, where the largest collection of books was collected. There he studied the works of Democritus, the Greek philosopher, and Eudoxus, the famous mechanic, astronomer, mathematician and physician. In the process of learning, the future scientist made friends with Eratosthenes, the head of the Alexandrian Library, and Konon. This friendship lasted for many years.

Service at the court of Hieron II

After completing his education, Archimedes returned to his homeland in Syracuse and began working as a court astronomer in the palace of Hieron II. However, not only the stars were interested in the inquisitive youthful mind. Work on astronomy was not difficult, so that the scientist had enough time to study physics, mathematics and engineering. During this period, Archimedes discovered his famous principle of using a lever and detailed his developments in the book On the Balance of Plane Figures. Then the world saw another work of the great scientist, which was called "On the Measurement of a Circle", where the author explained how to calculate the dependence of the diameter of a circle on its length.

The biography of Archimedes the mathematician includes information about the period of study of geometric optics. A gifted young man conducted unique experiments on the study of the refraction of light, and managed to derive a mathematical theorem that has retained its relevance to this day. This work contains evidence that the angle of incidence of a beam on a mirror surface is equal to the angle of reflection.

It is useful to get acquainted with the biography of Archimedes and his discoveries, if only because the latter changed the course of the development of science. Through extensive research in mathematics, Archimedes discovered a more advanced way to calculate the area of ​​complex figures than what existed at that time. Later, these studies formed the basis of the theory of integral calculus. Also, the work of his hands is the construction of a planetarium: a complex device that clearly and reliably demonstrates the movement of the Sun and planets.

Personal life

A brief biography of Archimedes and his discoveries are well studied, but the personal life of the scientist is shrouded in a veil of secrecy. Neither the contemporaries of the great explorer, nor the historians who have studied his life path, provided any data about his family or possible descendants.

Service to Syracuse

As follows from the biography of Archimedes, his discoveries in physics did a great service to his native city. After the discovery of the lever, Archimedes actively developed his theory and found useful practical applications for it. In the port of Syracuse, a complex structure was created, consisting of block-lever devices. Thanks to this engineering solution, the process of loading and unloading ships was significantly accelerated, and heavy, oversized cargo was moved easily and with little or no effort. The invention of the screw made it possible to collect water from low-lying reservoirs and raise it to a great height. This was an important achievement, since Syracuse is located in a mountainous area, and the delivery of water was a serious problem. Irrigation canals were filled with life-giving moisture and uninterruptedly supplied the inhabitants of the island.

However, Archimedes presented the main gift to his native city during the siege of Syracuse by the Roman army in 212 BC. e. The scientist took an active part in the defense and built several powerful throwing mechanisms. After the enemy troops managed to break through the city walls, most of the attackers died under a hail of stones fired from Archimedes' machines.

With the help of huge levers, also created by the scientist, the Syracusans were able to turn over the Roman ships and stop the attack. As a result, the Romans stopped the assault and switched to the tactics of a long siege. Eventually the city fell.

Death

The biography of Archimedes, a physicist, engineer and mathematician, ended after the capture of Syracuse by the Romans in 212 BC. e. The stories of his death, told by various prominent historians of that era, are somewhat different. According to one version, a Roman soldier broke into the house of Archimedes to escort him to the consul, and when the scientist refused to stop work and follow him, he killed him with a sword. According to another version, the Roman nevertheless allowed the drawing to be completed, but Archimedes was stabbed to death on the way to the consul. The researcher took with him instruments for studying the Sun, but the mysterious objects seemed too suspicious to the uneducated guards, and the scientist was killed. At that time he was about 75 years old.

Upon receiving the news of the death of Archimedes, the consul was saddened: rumors about the talent of the scientist and his achievements reached the ears of the Romans, so the new ruler hoped to attract Archimedes to his side. The body of the deceased researcher was buried with the greatest honors.

Tomb of Archimedes

150 years after the death of Archimedes, whose biography and achievements admired the Roman rulers, a search was organized for the place of the alleged burial. By that time, the scientist's grave was abandoned, and its location was forgotten, so the search turned out to be a difficult task. Mark Thulius Cicero, who ruled Syracuse on behalf of the Roman emperor, wished to erect a majestic monument on the grave, but, unfortunately, this structure has not been preserved. The burial place is located on the territory of the Archaeological Park of Naples, which is located near modern Syracuse.

Law of Archimedes

One of the most famous discoveries of the scientist was the so-called Law of Archimedes. The researcher determined that any physical body lowered into water exerts upward pressure. The liquid is displaced in a volume that is equal to the volume of the physical body, and does not depend on the density of the liquid itself.

Over time, the opening has acquired many myths and legends. According to one of the existing versions, Hieron II suspected that his royal crown was a fake and was not made of gold at all. He instructed Archimedes to sort it out and give a clear answer. To draw correct conclusions, it was necessary to measure the volume and weight of the object, and then compare it with a similar gold bar. Finding out the exact weight of the crown was not difficult, but how to calculate its volume? The answer came at the moment when the scientist was taking a bath. He realized that the volume of the crown, like any other physical body immersed in a liquid, is equal to the volume of the liquid being displaced. It was at this moment that Archimedes exclaimed, "Eureka!"

Archimedes considered his best friend not man, but mathematics.

Throwing machines, which the scientist built during the assault on Syracuse by Roman troops, could lift stones weighing up to 250 kg, which was an absolute record at that time.

Archimedes invented the screw while still a young man. Thanks to this invention, water flowed to the highlands and irrigated the fields, and the Egyptians still use this mechanism for irrigation.

Although the biography of Archimedes is full of mysteries and gaps, his achievements in the field of science are undeniable. Most of the discoveries made by scientists almost 2300 years ago are still used today.

Archimedes (287-212 BC), ancient Greek philosopher and scientist.

A native and citizen of Syracuse (Sicily). received in Alexandria, the greatest cultural center of the ancient world.

Archimedes owns a number of important mathematical discoveries (in the field of the ratio of the length and diameter of a circle, geometric progression, etc.). The highest achievements of the scientist in the field of physics are the scientific substantiation of the action of the lever and the discovery of the law according to which any body immersed in a liquid is subjected to a buoyant force directed upwards and equal to the weight of the liquid displaced by it (the law of Archimedes).

During the 2nd Punic War (218-201 BC), Syracuse, who had gone over to the side of Carthage, was subjected to a Roman siege. Archimedes became famous for his active participation in the defense of the city. He created many war machines that delayed the capture of Syracuse for a long time. The possibility of the existence of some of these mechanisms is still in doubt among a number of scientists (despite the direct evidence of ancient authors). So, Archimedes seemed to be able to focus

Archimedes was born in 287 BC, in Syracuse. A relative of the future scientist was Hieron, who later became the ruler of Syracuse Hieron II. Archimedes' father Phidias, an outstanding astronomer and mathematician, was at court. For this reason, the boy received a decent education.

Realizing that he lacked theoretical knowledge, the young man soon went to study in Alexandria, where at that time the brightest minds of antiquity worked.

Archimedes spent most of his time in the Library of Alexandria. There he studied the works of Democritus and Eudoxus. During his training, Archimedes became close to Eratosthenes and Conon. The friendship lasted for many years.

Works and achievements

After completing his studies, Archimedes returned to his native Syracuse and took up the position of astronomer at the court of Hieron II. But not only the stars attracted his attention.

The position of an astronomer was not burdensome. Archimedes had the opportunity to study mechanics, physics and mathematics. At this time, the principle of the lever was applied by the researcher to solve several problems in geometry.

The conclusions were detailed in the work “On the equilibrium of plane figures”.

A little later, Archimedes wrote the essay “On the Measurement of a Circle”. He was able to calculate the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its length.

Studying a brief biography of Archimedes, you should know that he also paid attention to geometric optics. He carried out several interesting experiments on the refraction of light. The theorem has come down to our days. It proves that against the background of the reflection of a beam of light from a mirror surface, the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection.

Gifts to Syracuse

Archimedes made many useful discoveries. All of them were dedicated to the native city of the scientist. Archimedes actively developed the idea of ​​using the lever. In the port of Syracuse, he managed to create a whole system of lever-and-block mechanisms that speed up the process of transporting heavy, oversized cargo.

With the help of the Archimedean screw, or auger, it became possible to extract water from low-lying reservoirs. Thanks to this, irrigation canals began to receive moisture uninterruptedly.

The main service to Syracuse was provided by Archimedes in 212. The scientist took an active part in the defense of Syracuse, which were besieged by Roman troops. Archimedes managed to create some of the most powerful throwing machines. When the Romans broke into the city, many of them fell under the blows of stones fired from these machines.

Archimedean cranes easily overturned Roman ships. This led to the fact that the Roman soldiers abandoned the assault on the city and began a long siege.

Unfortunately, in the end, the city was taken.

Death of a scientist

The story of the death of Archimedes was transmitted by John Zetz, Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus and Titus Livius. The details of the death of the great scientist vary. One thing is common: Archimedes was killed by a certain Roman soldier. According to one version, the Roman did not wait until Archimedes completed the drawing, and for refusing to follow the consul, he stabbed him with a sword.

Another version says that the scientist was killed on the way to Marcellus. The Roman soldiers seemed suspicious of the instruments for measuring the Sun, which Archimedes carried in his hands.

Consul Marcellus, having learned about the death of a scientist, was upset. The body of Archimedes was buried with great honors, and "great respect" was shown to his relatives.

Other biography options

• One day Archimedes exclaimed, “Give me a foothold, and I will move the Earth!” In the eyes of his contemporaries, the outstanding scientist was practically a demigod.
• According to legend, the Syracusans managed to burn several Roman ships. This was done with the help of huge mirrors, the amazing properties of which were also discovered by Archimedes.

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Perhaps, with the word inventor or something similar, the name of Archimedes quite often appears in the mind. This ancient thinker was indeed an outstanding inventor and left a significant number of discoveries that influenced the development of all mankind in the future.

Archimedes was born in 287 BC on the island of Sicily in the capital - Syracuse. He was born into a fairly noble family, his father was himself a mathematician, and he was also known to the tyrant of that city, Hieron the Second. Both of them from an early age noticed a penchant for knowledge in the boy and sent Archimedes to study in Alexandria of Egypt as a teenager, it was there that the largest library was located, which Herostratus later burned to become famous.

After training, during which he met many pundits of his time and learned advanced ideas, Archimedes returns to his homeland and actually enters the service of Hieron. The tyrant in every way wants Archimedes to start developing all sorts of military innovations for the island, and the young scientist adheres to peace-loving views and wants to do only the study of the world. So, Archimedes stays on the island and begins to make his discoveries, many of which turn out to be the result of work with Hieron, for example, it was he who wanted the young mathematician to determine the composition of the crown, but without damaging the object itself.

It was then that the invention appeared about the displacement of bodies of different volumes of water, with an identical mass. In addition, Archimedes made many discoveries in mathematics, which were no less than a couple of thousand years ahead of the era. That's right, some ideas, such as semi-regular polyhedra or the use of parabolas and hyperbolas to solve equations, scientists were able to appreciate and develop only in modern times, after the Middle Ages.

In 212, Syracuse came under pressure from Roman troops. Then there was the second Punic War and Sicily was at a disadvantage between the empire and Carthage. Archimedes made a lot of military inventions in order to defend his own city (throwing weapons, reflecting copper plates and much more), however, Syracuse fell, and Archimedes died at the hands of a Roman soldier.

Biography 2

The exact biography of Archimedes, unfortunately, is unknown. Scientists and archaeologists of different eras gave different facts from his life, but they are also based on the works of people who lived much later than Archimedes. According to the most common version, the future mathematician was born in 287 BC. Place of birth was Syracuse (Sicily). The boy's father, an astronomer and mathematician, sent his son to study in Alexandria. The favorite place of the future physicist and mathematician was the library of Alexandria, where he studied the works and writings of Democritus, Eudoxus and many other scientists. In the same place, Archimedes makes acquaintances that he will carry through his whole life.

The young man from his youth loved mathematics. All the time he devoted to developments in the field of arithmetic, algebra and geometry. Experts in these areas were able to understand, classify and develop his ideas only by the 17th century. Archimedes solved the most complex equations, finding solutions graphically. He calculated the areas, volumes of various kinds of geometric shapes. He collected and generalized already known methods of calculation into uniform principles and formulas. He deduced and proved postulates and axioms, which not only were not refuted, but were also taken as a basis by modern scientists. One of his most important achievements in geometry, in his own words, was to find the surface area and volume of a sphere. He also derived formulas for calculating the volumes of a paraboloid, a hyperboloid of revolution, and an ellipsoid. Before Archimedes, no mathematician had performed these calculations.

In addition to arithmetic, algebra and the geometry he loved so much, Archimedes applied his knowledge in the field of mechanics and physics, inventing and improving existing structures and mechanisms. For example, Archimedes, known before his birth, improved the lever by calculating its capabilities and putting it into practice in the port of Syracuse. Some devices and mechanisms based on the principle of leverage have since made hard work much easier.

Astronomy also did not leave him indifferent. The scientist was engaged in determining the distance between space objects, although he did it from an erroneous point of view. Indeed, in the 3rd century BC. the geocentric theory of the existence of the world was widespread. However, later Archimedes presented the heliocentric theory in one of his works.

A chain of mountains and a crater on the surface of the Moon, an asteroid, streets in several Russian cities and a street in Amsterdam are named after him. Archimedes died during military operations during the advance of the Romans on Syracuse. For the victory of his Motherland, the scientist created throwing mechanisms. Roman troops suffered significantly from these machines. It was decided to keep the city under siege. In 212 BC. Syracuse surrendered and Archimedes was killed.

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