Archimedes
287–212 BC 3 entries
Biography
Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer and inventor, the greatest scientist of antiquity. He lived in the Greek city of Syracuse in Sicily and probably studied in Alexandria, with whose scholars he corresponded all his life. He calculated the value of pi with great accuracy, found the areas and volumes of curved figures, and came close to the methods of integral calculus. He set out the law of the lever and the principle of buoyancy, which, according to the story, came to him in his bath and sent him running through the streets shouting “Eureka!”
He also designed machines, among them the screw for raising water that bears his name. When the Romans besieged Syracuse, his war engines held them off for two years. He was killed by a Roman soldier when the city fell in 212 BC, according to legend while he was drawing circles in the sand.
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