archimedes :: essays research papers

Archimedes Archimedes lived during 287? - 212 B.C. The nationality of Archimedes is Greek in which he was born in Syracuse, Sicily. (World 605). Archimedes attended a school in Alexandria, Egypt. He was trained by such greats as Conon and Eratosthenes. (Math 22) The area of work that Archimedes was knows for is his work in Geometry and astronomy because his father was an astronomer. Archimedes is also known for Hydrostatics, static mechanics, pycnometry and he is called the â€Å"father of integral calculus.† (MCS 1). His mathematical contributions are endless and are still used to this day. First there is his method of finding Pi, the ratio between the diameter and circumference of a circle. This was greatly needed in his times for builders dealing with large works of art. He also computed the area of a segment of a parabola. By using triangles he found them to be the pieces of Geometry. There is the Archimedean spiral that is still used in Egypt to drain and fill farmland with water. It is a tube with a spiral screw that is turned and then the water enter the chambers and comes out the other side. Other remarkable works are the Sandreckoner that is where he starts a number system capable of expressing numbers up to 8x1016. He says this method can be used to count all the grains of sand in the world. He was also known for his invention of the catapult, which helped the Greeks with there Roman problems. (Math 24). Thing that helped and hindered Archimedes in mathematical greatness are concededly dealt with wars. Such as the Rome and Carthage war when the Romans decide to invade Syracuse. Archimedes used his math knowledge to come up with catapults and a large grappling hooks, that where hooked to a lever that in turn lifted the ships out of the water and dropped them. One of the most different things that he did that dealt with the war was when they attack, Archimedes had the Greek men hold up special shaped shields that were focused on the ships and when the sun hit the shields the ships went up in flames this is also a myth that no one knows the truth to. This in turn helped and hinder him it made him come up with new ideas but he had no time to deal with other thing of non-war activities (Gap 7)