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Archimedes of Syracuse


            The name Archimedes just rings out mathematics. Not just mathematics but, inventions, engineering marvels, physics and astronomy. Little is actually known about his life, whether or not he was married, had children, his true age, or who his parents were. The date of Archimedes birth was figured from a statement where a Byzantine Greek historian named John Tzetzes declared in his writings that Archimedes lived for 75 years. Archimedes wrote, in his works titled, "The Sand Reckoner" that his father was named Phidias. There is very little information about Phidias. Only some references that he was an astronomer. What IS known is that Archimedes is considered by many to be one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. .
             With the one stipulation that he couldn't cut the King's gold wreath crown open, Archimedes took on the daunting task of making sure his King wasn't cheated out of a little gold by searching for a way to test the gold purity of the wreath by checking its weight and buoyancy. We've all heard the phrase, "Eureka!" Well, this is the guy that coined that phrase, it's Greek for, 'I've Found It!' or 'I've Got It!'. Archimedes streaked and shrieked this through the streets of Syracuse after discovering, while taking a bath, that his mass was measurable through a system of water buoyancy calculations. He would later check the amount of water displaced by the crown in question, versus the amount of water displaced by the original amount of gold allotted to the jeweler who made the crown. It was discovered that the crown displaced less water than the original amount of gold leaving the truth of the crown being filled with a metal of equal weight yet less mass, like silver. This was the first time an irregularly shaped object's mass could be determined. Before this, only weight scales existed, now Archimedes had invented a method for determining an objects density.


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