Mathematician:Archimedes of Syracuse

Mathematician
Known as Archimedes of Syracuse.

Greek mathematician, physicist, astronomer, engineer and general all-round inventor.

Perfected the method of exhaustion. Considered by many (with some justification) to be the greatest mathematician, inventor and physicist of the ancient world.

Other achievements:
 * Discovered the principle of the lever
 * Originated the concept of the center of gravity, and found them for several plane figures
 * With his machines, he held off several attacks by the Romans under Marcellus

Nationality
Greek

History

 * Born: c. 287 BCE in Syracuse in Magna Graecia (in Sicily, now part of Italy)
 * Died: c. 212 BCE in the Second Punic War. Supposed to have been by a drunken Roman soldier because either:
 * He was contemplating a problem in geometry and was unwilling to be disturbed to answer a summons from the Roman general who had captured the city;
 * He was killed trying to surrender to the Romans, and a soldier killed him to plunder his mathematical instruments, which the soldier thought were valuable.

Theorems and Definitions

 * Volume of Sphere
 * Quadrature of Parabola
 * Area of Circle


 * Archimedean Spiral
 * Archimedean Principle, otherwise known as the Archimedean Law
 * Archimedes' Principle
 * Archimedean Property

Inventions

 * Archimedes Screw
 * A hydraulic mechanism modelling the solar system against the background of the fixed stars

Books and Papers
These works have survived in some form:
 * On Plane Equilibriums (2 books)
 * Quadrature of the Parabola
 * The Method (which includes the calculation of the volume of a sphere)
 * On the Sphere and Cylinder (2 books)
 * On Conoids and Spheroids
 * On Spirals
 * On Floating Bodies (2 books)
 * Measurement of a Circle
 * The Sand Reckoner
 * On Sphere-making (now lost, believed to have dealt with the techniques for building his solar system model)

The following works appear no longer to be with us:
 * A work on semi-regular polyhedra, mentioned by
 * A work on the number system proposed in The Sand Reckoner (mentioned by Archimedes himself)
 * On balances and levers mentioned by
 * A treatise about mirrors, mentioned by

Commentaries of On Plane Equilibriums, On the Sphere and Cylinder and Measurement of a Circle were written by.

Notable Quotes

 * Give me a place to stand on, and I can move the earth.