What did Archimedes invent? The tale of the scientist Archimedes, who cost an entire army

The ancient Greek physicist, mathematician and engineer Archimedes made many geometric discoveries, laid the foundations of hydrostatics and mechanics, created inventions that served as the starting point for the further development of science. Legends about Archimedes were created during his lifetime. The scientist spent several years in Alexandria, where he met and became friends with many other great scientists of his time.

The biography of Archimedes is known from the works of Titus, Polybius, Livy, Vitruvius and other authors who lived later than the scientist himself. It is difficult to assess the reliability of these data. It is known that Archimedes was born in the Greek colony of Syracuse, located on the island of Sicily. His father, presumably, was the astronomer and mathematician Phidias. also claimed that the scientist was a close relative of the kind and skillful ruler of Syracuse, Hieron II.

Probably, Archimedes spent his childhood years in Syracuse, and at a young age he went to Alexandria of Egypt to receive an education. For several centuries this city was the cultural and scientific center of the civilized Ancient World. The scientist, presumably, received his primary education from his father. After living for several years in Alexandria, Archimedes returned to Syracuse and lived there for the rest of his life.

Engineering

The scientist actively developed mechanical structures. He laid out a detailed theory of the lever and effectively used this theory in practice, although the invention itself was known even before him. Including, based on knowledge in this area, he made a number of block-lever mechanisms in the port of Syracuse. These devices made it easier to lift and move heavy loads, speeding up and optimizing the work of the port. And the “Archimedean screw”, designed to scoop up water, is still used in Egypt.

Inventions of Archimedes: Archimedes screw

Great importance have the theoretical research of a scientist in the field of mechanics. Based on the proof of the law of the lever, he began to write the work "On the equilibrium of plane figures." The proof is based on the axiom that on equal arms, equal bodies will necessarily balance. The same principle of building a book - starting with the proof of his own law - Archimedes observed when writing the work "On the Float of Bodies". This book begins with a description of the well-known law of Archimedes.

Mathematics and physics

Discoveries in the field of mathematics were the real passion of the scientist. According to Plutarch, Archimedes forgot about food and personal care when he was on the verge of another invention in this area. The main direction of his mathematical research was the problems of mathematical analysis.

Even before Archimedes, formulas were invented for calculating the areas of a circle and polygons, the volumes of a pyramid, cone and prism. But the experience of the scientist allowed him to develop general techniques for calculating volumes and areas. To this end, he improved the method of exhaustion, invented by Eudoxus of Cnidus, and brought the ability to apply it to a virtuoso level. Archimedes did not become the creator of the theory of integral calculus, but his work later became the basis for this theory.

The mathematician also laid the foundations of differential calculus. From a geometric point of view, he studied the possibilities of determining the tangent to a curved line, from a physical point of view, the speed of a body at any time. The scientist explored a flat curve known as the Archimedean spiral. He found the first generalized way to find tangents to a hyperbola, a parabola, and an ellipse. It was only in the seventeenth century that scientists were able to fully comprehend and reveal all the ideas of Archimedes that had come down to those times in his surviving writings. The scientist often refused to describe inventions in books, which is why not every formula he wrote has survived to this day.

Inventions of Archimedes: "solar" mirrors

The scientist considered the invention of formulas for calculating the surface area and volume of a ball to be a worthy discovery. If in the previous cases described, Archimedes refined and improved other people's theories, or created quick calculation methods as an alternative to existing formulas, then in the case of determining the volume and surface of a ball, he was the first. Before him, no scientist had coped with this task. Therefore, the mathematician asked to knock out a ball inscribed in a cylinder on his gravestone.

The discovery of a scientist in the field of physics was a statement that is known as the law of Archimedes. He determined that any body immersed in a liquid is subjected to pressure by a buoyant force. It is directed upwards, and in magnitude is equal to the weight of the liquid that was displaced when the body was placed in the liquid, regardless of what the density of this liquid is.

There is a legend associated with this discovery. Once Hieron II allegedly turned to the scientist, who doubted that the weight of the crown made for him corresponded to the weight of the gold that was provided for its creation. Archimedes made two ingots of the same weight as the crown: silver and gold. Then he placed these ingots in turn in a vessel of water and noted how much its level increased. Then the scientist put a crown in the vessel and found that the water did not rise to the level to which it rose when each of the ingots was placed in the vessel. Thus it was discovered that the master had kept some of the gold for himself.

There is a myth that a bath helped Archimedes to make a key discovery in physics. While swimming, the scientist allegedly slightly raised his leg in the water, discovered that it weighs less in water, and experienced an insight. A similar situation took place, however, with its help, the scientist discovered not the law of Archimedes, but the law of the specific gravity of metals.

Astronomy

Archimedes became the inventor of the first planetarium. When moving this device, observe:

the rising of the moon and the sun;
the movement of the five planets;
the disappearance of the Moon and the Sun behind the horizon line;
phases and eclipses of the moon.

Inventions of Archimedes: Planetarium

The scientist also tried to create formulas for calculating the distances to celestial bodies. Modern researchers suggest that Archimedes considered the Earth to be the center of the world. He believed that Venus, Mars and Mercury revolve around the Sun, and this entire system revolves around the Earth.

Personal life

Much less is known about the scientist's personal life than about his science. Even his contemporaries composed numerous legends about a gifted mathematician, physicist and engineer. The legend tells that one day Hieron II decided to present a multi-deck ship as a gift to Ptolemy, the king of Egypt. It was decided to name the water vessel "Syracusia", but it could not be launched in any way.

In this situation, the ruler again turned to Archimedes. From several blocks, he built a system with which the descent of a heavy vessel was made with a single movement of the hand. According to legend, during this movement, Archimedes said:

"Give me a point of support and I will move the world."

Death

In 212 BC, during the Second Punic War, Syracuse was besieged by the Romans. Archimedes actively used engineering knowledge to help his people win. So, he designed throwing machines, with the help of which the soldiers of Syracuse threw heavy stones at their opponents. When the Romans rushed to the walls of the city, hoping that there they would not come under fire, another invention of Archimedes - light close-range throwing devices - helped the Greeks to bombard them with cannonballs.

Inventions of Archimedes: catapult

The scientist helped his compatriots in naval battles. The cranes he developed grabbed enemy ships with iron hooks, lifted them slightly, and then abruptly threw them back. Because of this, the ships turned over and crashed. For a long time, these cranes were considered something of a legend, but in 2005 a group of researchers proved the performance of such devices by reconstructing them from surviving descriptions.

Inventions of Archimedes: lifting machine

Thanks to the efforts of Archimedes, the hope of the Romans to storm the city failed. Then they decided to go to the siege. In the autumn of 212 BC, the colony was taken by the Romans as a result of treason. Archimedes was killed during this incident. According to one version, he was hacked to death by a Roman soldier, whom the scientist attacked for stepping on his drawing.

Other researchers argue that the place of death of Archimedes was his laboratory. The scientist was allegedly so carried away by research that he refused to immediately follow the Roman soldier, who was ordered to take Archimedes to the commander. He pierced the old man with his sword in anger.

There are still variations of this story, but they agree that the ancient Roman politician and military leader Marcellus was extremely upset by the death of the scientist and, uniting with the citizens of Syracuse and his own subjects, gave Archimedes a magnificent funeral. Cicero, who discovered the ruined tomb of the scientist 137 years after his death, saw on it a ball inscribed in a cylinder.

Compositions

Parabola squaring
About the ball and cylinder
About spirals
About conoids and spheroids
On the equilibrium of plane figures
Epistle to Eratosthenes about the method
About floating bodies
Circle measurement
psummit
Stomachion
Archimedes' bull problem
Treatise on the construction of a bodily figure with fourteen bases near a ball
Book of Lemmas
A book about building a circle divided into seven equal parts
The Book of Touching Circles

Archimedes is known to have lived in Syracuse. This is Sicily.

At the same time that Hannibal was at war with Rome, the Greek Syracuse was in the unpleasant position of having to choose: they should join one of the warring parties. There was no way to remain neutral. In the city itself, there were different opinions about who to join. Better, of course, to the winner. But the situation was changing.

Syracuse, sending a detachment of 8 thousand soldiers, took part in the resistance to the Romans Leontin. The city fell. Horrors were told about his fall: everyone was killed by the Romans - warriors, civilians, everything was plundered. Titus Livius, a Roman historian, does not deny that 2,000 defectors were flogged and executed on the orders of the Roman general Marcellus.

In Syracuse, they decided that with their richer city, the Romans would have done even worse.

Roman troops launched an assault on Syracuse simultaneously from land and sea. And then they encountered Archimedes.

Archimedes was born in 287 BC. in the family of the mathematician and astronomer Phidias and was a relative of the Syracusan king Hieron II. He continued his education in Alexandria. He made interesting astronomical observations, determined the diameter of the Sun and the distances between the planets, invented the "celestial globe", which made it possible to study the movements of the planets, the phases of the moon, solar and lunar eclipses. He worked a lot in the field of mechanics, on the invention of various kinds of tools, on the solution of mathematical and physical problems.

Obviously, he saw his civic duty in protecting the fatherland from invaders.

Map of Syracuse.

Siege of Syracuse.

Marcellus stormed the wall of Ahradina from the sea with 60 quinqueremes; from some ships, slingers, archers, spearmen fired at the wall, other ships he ordered to connect two by two and, having installed siege weapons on them, bring them close to the fortifications.

Roman quinquereme.

Distant ships Archimedes struck with catapults, and to defeat neighbors he organized loopholes in the walls. When the Roman ships entered the dead zone under the very walls, an "iron paw" collapsed on them: seizing the bow of the ship with a paw, they put the ship in the stern or even raised it above the sea, and then abandoned it, the ship lost its crew, crashed, drowned.

Loopholes in the walls.

Variant of the "iron paw".

Another one.

The assault from the sea was unsuccessful.

The same with sushi. The tools of Archimedes threw stones, arrows, spears, blocks on the heads of the Romans.

Marcellus abandoned his attempts to take the city by storm and proceeded to blockade.

Polybius supplements and refines Livy's story. So is Plutarch. According to him, Marcellus cried out: "Shall we not stop fighting with this geometer-Briareus, who, sitting calmly by the sea, destroys our ships and, at the same time showering us with so many arrows, surpasses the hundred-armed giants?" In the end, Archimedes inspired such horror in the Roman soldiers that they fled in panic when they saw a piece of rope or a log above the city wall.

Taking the city by storm was out of the question. The blockade also proved to be ineffective: food was regularly brought to Syracuse from Carthage. Marcellus pinned his hopes only on the "fifth clone" - the pro-Roman Syracusans.

In one place, the city wall was found to be comparatively low. But it was here that she was especially vigilantly guarded. In the besieged city, the usual three-day celebration in honor of Artemis was going on, wine was generously distributed to the people.

Late at night, a Roman detachment of a thousand soldiers entered the city. The panic began. However, Ahradina and the island of Ortigia were not going to give up.

While negotiations were going on in the Roman camp, clashes broke out in Syracuse itself. In this situation, Marcellus proceeded to storm Ahradina and landed troops on Ortigia. Now the capture is successful. He gave Ahradina to be plundered. Titus Livy: "Many disgusting examples of malice were revealed, many of greed." During this bacchanalia of violence and robbery, Archimedes died, busy drawing on the sand. Livy says that the Roman soldier did not know who he encountered, and Marcellus seemed to be upset by this death: he attended to the burial of the great scientist, and protected his relatives from violence.

Ortigia. Modern look.

Plutarch gives three stories about the death of Archimedes.

According to the first, Archimedes was busy drawing and did not pay attention to the Roman soldiers. When one of them demanded it to Marcellus, Archimedes said that he had not yet solved the problem, and the enraged warrior stabbed him to death. The second is similar to the first. And the third tells that Archimedes was going to Marcellus with his tools, when the soldiers, mistaking them for treasures, killed him for the purpose of robbery.

Zonarra tells the following: "The Romans killed many others and Archimedes." With him, Marcellus did not order to spare the scientist, did not grieve about his death, and, moreover, did not punish anyone.

Marcellus, who unleashed robberies and murders in the captured Syracuse, may have considered it necessary to express sadness about the death of Archimedes: it was unprofitable for the Romans, who needed the support of the Greeks, to present themselves in the role of murderers and rapists, exterminating the best representatives of the Hellenic thought. The comparison with Hannibal, who had Greek writers at his headquarters, was extremely unpleasant.

Cicero says that Marcellus dedicated one of the Archimedean "spheres", celestial globes, to the temple of Courage, and took the other for himself: this relic was passed down in his family from generation to generation. A sad relic - the creation of a brilliant man you killed.

Marcellus.

However, in Syracuse captured by Rome, it was apparently unsafe to mention the name of Archimedes - the uncompromising enemy of Rome. His grave was abandoned and forgotten. Only Cicero already in the 1st c. I was able to find it with great difficulty.

Archimedes Square in Syracuse.

She is. Fountain of Artemis, in whose honor the festival was held.

A statue of Archimedes with a bronze hyberbolic mirror, with the system of which he seemed to burn the Roman fleet. But that is another story.

Archimedes is an ancient Greek inventor, mathematician, mechanic and engineer who lived in the 3rd century BC (287 - 212 BC).

Not much is known about his life, since almost all the authors who transmitted his biography lived much later.

As a result, the biography of Archimedes is full of legends, some of which have become very popular.

Biography of Archimedes briefly

Archimedes was born in Syracuse - this is one of the first Greek colonies on the island of Sicily. It is possible that his father was the famous Phidias, an astronomer and mathematician. Putarch also reports that Archimedes was a close relative of Hiero II, tyrant of Syracuse.

Being related to such celebrities, Archimedes was able to receive an excellent education: he studied in Alexandria, which at that time was famous as a center of learning. After training, he returned to his homeland and could fully engage in science, as he did not need funds.

Inventions of Archimedes

Archimedean screw, or auger - serves to lift and transport goods, scoop out water. This device is still used today (for example, in Egypt).
Different types of cranes based on pulleys and levers.
The Celestial Sphere is the world's first planetarium, with the help of which it was possible to observe the movement of the sun, moon and five planets known at that time.
A number close to the number P is the so-called "Archimedean number": 3 1/7; Archimedes himself indicated the accuracy of the approximation of this number. To solve this problem, he built a circle into 96-gons inscribed and circumscribed around it, the sides of which he then measured.
Discovery of the fundamental law of physics in general and hydrostatics in particular. This law is named after him and consists in the ratio of the buoyancy force, volume and weight of a body immersed in a liquid.
Being the first theoretician of mechanics, Archimedes introduced thought experiments into it. The first such experiments were his proofs of the law of the lever and the law of Archimedes.

Defense of Syracuse

In 212, the Romans besieged Syracuse. But they could not capture the city for a long time. Legends say that a long defense was made possible thanks to one resident of the city - Archimedes. He built throwing machines that destroyed the Roman army with heavy shells, and cranes that lifted enemy ships and sank them.

Archimedean screw photo

It is also reported how Archimedes, using mirrors and shields polished to a shine, set fire to Roman ships, focusing the sun's rays on them. There is an opinion that the ships were set on fire by burning shells thrown with the help of the same throwing machines, and the focused sun's rays served only as an aim.

blocks and levers of Archimedes photo

Mentions of these weapons are just legends, however, in recent years, experiments have been carried out to establish whether these inventions could actually exist. In 2005, scientists reproduced cranes that turned out to be quite efficient. And in 1973, the Greek scientist Ioannis Sakkas set fire to a plywood model of a Roman ship using a combination of mirrors.

inventions of Archimedes defense of Syracuse photo

Nevertheless, scientists continue to doubt the existence of "mirror" weapons at Syracuse, since none of the ancient authors mentions it; information about him appeared only in the early Middle Ages - from the author of the VI century Anthimius of Trall. Despite a heroic - and ingenious - defense, Syracuse was finally subdued, and Archimedes died the same year.

There are many versions of the death of a scientist, but most of them agree that Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier when he was sitting near his house and pondering over the drawings.

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.

Archimedes - an outstanding ancient Greek mathematician, inventor and engineer - lived in the III century BC (287 - 212 BC).

A friend of Archimedes, Heraclid, wrote a biography of the great scientist, but it was lost and very little is known about his life. Little is known about his life, also because almost all the authors who transmitted his biography lived much later. As a result, the biography of Archimedes is full of legends, some of which have become very popular. However, legends about Archimedes were created during his lifetime. Much less is known about the scientist's personal life than about his science.

From the biography of Archimedes:

Archimedes was born in the city of Syracuse in Sicily. At that time it was one of the first ancient Greek colonies on the island of Sicily and was called Magna Graecia. It included the territory of modern Southern Italy and Sicily. + Archimedes was born in 287 BC. e. The date of birth is known from the words of the Byzantine historian John Tsets. He lived in Constantinople in the XII century. That is, almost one and a half thousand years after Archimedes. He also wrote that the famous ancient Greek mathematician lived to be 75 years old. Such accurate information raises certain doubts, but one has to believe the ancient historian. The biography of Archimedes is known from the works of Titus, Cicero, Polybius, Livy, Vitruvius and other authors who lived later than the scientist himself. It is difficult to assess the reliability of these data.

Archimedes probably spent his childhood in Syracuse. The scientist probably received his primary education from his father. His father, presumably, was the astronomer and mathematician Phidias. Plutarch also claimed that the scientist was a close relative of the ruler of Syracuse, Hieron II.

Being related to such celebrities, Archimedes was able to receive an excellent education: he studied in Alexandria, which at that time was famous as a center of learning. Alexandria of Egypt for several centuries was the cultural and scientific center of the civilized Ancient World. There Archimedes met and became friends with many other great scientists of his time.

Bust of Archimedes

It was in Alexandria that a young man striving for knowledge established friendly relations with the mathematician and astronomer Konon of Samos and the astronomer, mathematician and philologist Erastofen from Cyrene - these were famous scientists of that time. With them, Archimedes struck up a strong friendship. It lasted all my life, and was expressed in correspondence.

Also within the walls of the Library of Alexandria, Archimedes got acquainted with the works of such famous geometers as Eudoxus and Democritus. He also learned a lot of other useful knowledge. After training, he returned to his homeland and could fully engage in science, as he did not need funds. At home in Syracuse, Archimedes quickly established himself as an intelligent and gifted person, and lived long years, enjoying the respect of others, and lived there until the end of his life.

Nothing is known about his wife and children, but there is no doubt that he studied in Alexandria, where the famous Alexandrian Library was located.

Archimedes died during the Second Punic War, when Roman troops captured Syracuse after a 2-year siege. The commander of the Romans was Marcus Claudius Marcellus. According to Plutarch, he ordered Archimedes to be found and brought to him. A Roman soldier came to the house of an outstanding mathematician when he was thinking about mathematical formulas. The soldier demanded to immediately go with him and meet with Marcellus. But the mathematician brushed off the obsessive Roman, saying that he must first complete the work. The soldier was indignant and stabbed the smartest inhabitant of Syracuse with a sword.

There is also a version that claims that Archimedes was killed right on the street when he was carrying mathematical tools in his hands. The Roman soldiers decided that these were valuable items and stabbed the mathematician to death. But be that as it may, the death of this man outraged Marcellus, since his order was violated. There are other versions of this story, but they agree that the ancient Roman politician and military leader Marcellus was extremely upset by the death of the scientist and, uniting with the citizens of Syracuse and his own subjects, gave Archimedes a magnificent funeral.

140 years after these events, the famous Roman orator Cicero arrived in Sicily. He tried to find the tomb of Archimedes, but none of the locals knew where it was. Finally, the grave was found in a dilapidated state in a thicket of bushes on the outskirts of Syracuse. The gravestone depicted a sphere and a cylinder inscribed in it. Under them were embossed verses. However, this version has no documentary evidence.

In the early 60s of the XX century, an ancient grave was also discovered in the courtyard of the Panorama Hotel in Syracuse. The owners of the hotel began to claim that this is the burial place of the great mathematician and inventor of antiquity. But again, they did not provide any convincing evidence. In a word, to this day it is not known where Archimedes is buried, and in what place his grave is located.

Scientific activity and inventions of Archimedes:

The ancient Greek physicist, mathematician and engineer Archimedes made many geometric discoveries, laid the foundations of hydrostatics and mechanics, created inventions that served as the starting point for the further development of science. + Discoveries in the field of mathematics were the real passion of the scientist. According to Plutarch, Archimedes forgot about food and personal care when he was on the verge of another invention in this area. The main direction of his mathematical research was the problems of mathematical analysis.

Also an outstanding mathematician laid the foundations of differential calculus. From a geometric point of view, he studied the possibilities of determining the tangent to a curved line, from a physical point of view, the speed of a body at any time. The scientist explored a flat curve known as the Archimedean spiral. He found the first generalized way to find tangents to a hyperbola, a parabola, and an ellipse. Hence, we can safely say that this man overtook mathematical science by 2 thousand years. It was only in the seventeenth century that scientists were able to fully comprehend and reveal all the ideas of Archimedes that had come down to those times in his surviving writings. The scientist often refused to describe inventions in books, which is why not every formula he wrote has survived to this day.

The scientist was also actively developing mechanical designs. He developed and presented a detailed theory of the lever and effectively used this theory in practice, although the invention itself was known before him. In the port of Syracuse, block-lever mechanisms were made. These devices made it easier to lift and move heavy loads, speeding up and optimizing the work of the port.

He also invented the screw, with which water was scooped out. His "Archimedean screw" is still used in Egypt. Archimedes created the theory of balancing equal bodies. He proved that a buoyant force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid acts on a body immersed in a liquid. This idea came to him in the bath. She so shocked the outstanding mathematician and inventor with her simplicity that he jumped out of the bath and, dressed as Adam, ran through the streets of Syracuse, shouting "Eureka", which means "found". Subsequently, this proof was called the law of Archimedes. + The theoretical research of a scientist in the field of mechanics is of great importance. Based on the proof of the law of the lever, he began to write the work "On the equilibrium of plane figures." The proof is based on the axiom that on equal arms, equal bodies will necessarily balance. The same principle of building a book - starting with the proof of his own law - Archimedes observed when writing the work "On the Float of Bodies". This book begins with a description of the well-known law of Archimedes.

There is a legend connected with the law of Archimedes. Once Hieron II allegedly turned to the scientist, who doubted that the weight of the crown made for him corresponded to the weight of the gold that was provided for its creation. Archimedes made two ingots of the same weight as the crown: silver and gold. Then he placed these ingots in turn in a vessel of water and noted how much its level increased. Then the scientist put a crown in the vessel and found that the water did not rise to the level to which it rose when each of the ingots was placed in the vessel. Thus, it was discovered that the master kept some of the gold for himself.

Archimedes became the inventor of the first planetarium. When moving this device, they observe: the rising of the moon and the sun; the movement of the five planets; the disappearance of the Moon and the Sun behind the horizon line; phases and eclipses of the moon.

Even his contemporaries composed numerous legends about a gifted mathematician, physicist and engineer. The legend tells that one day Hieron II decided to present a multi-deck ship as a gift to Ptolemy, the king of Egypt. It was decided to name the water vessel "Syracusia", but it could not be launched in any way. In this situation, the ruler again turned to Archimedes. From several blocks, he built a system with which the descent of a heavy vessel was made with a single movement of the hand. According to legend, during this movement, Archimedes said: "Give me a fulcrum, and I will turn the world."

In 212 BC, during the Second Punic War, the Romans began to storm Syracuse. At this time, Archimedes was already an elderly man, but his mind did not lose its sharpness. Archimedes actively used engineering knowledge to help his people win. As Plutarch wrote, under his leadership, throwing machines were built, with the help of which the soldiers of Syracuse threw heavy stones at their opponents. When the Romans rushed to the walls of the city, hoping that there they would not come under fire, another invention of Archimedes - light close-range throwing devices - helped the Greeks to bombard them with cannonballs. Roman galleys scurrying in the port of Syracuse were attacked by special cranes with gripping hooks (Archimedes' claw). With the help of these hooks, the besieged lifted the ships into the air and threw them down from a great height. Ships, hitting the water, crashed and sank. All these technological advances frightened the invaders. So thanks to the efforts of Archimedes, the hope of the Romans to storm the city failed. They abandoned the assault on the city and moved on to a long siege. In the autumn of 212 BC, the colony was taken by the Romans as a result of treason. Archimedes was killed during this incident. According to one version, he was hacked to death by a Roman soldier, whom the scientist attacked for stepping on his drawing.

There is a legend that Archimedes ordered the shields to be polished to a mirror shine, and then arranged in such a way that they, reflecting the color of the sun, focused it into powerful rays. They were sent to the Roman ships, and they burned down. Mentions of these weapons are just legends, however, in recent years, experiments have been carried out to establish whether these inventions could actually exist. In 2005, scientists reproduced cranes that turned out to be quite efficient. And in 1973, the Greek scientist Ioannis Sakkas set fire to a plywood model of a Roman ship using a combination of mirrors. He created a cascade of 70 copper mirrors and with his help set fire to a plywood model of the ship, which was located at a distance of 75 meters from the mirrors. So this legend could well have a practical basis.

Legacy of Archimedes:

Archimedes wrote his works in Doric Greek, a dialect spoken in Syracuse. But the originals have not survived. They have come down to us in the retelling of other authors. All this was systematized and collected in a single collection by the Byzantine architect Isidore from Miletus, who lived in Constantinople in the 6th century. This collection was translated into Arabic in the 9th century, and in the 12th century it was translated into Latin.

During the Renaissance, the works of the Greek thinker were published in Basel in Latin and Greek. Based on these works, Galileo Galilei invented the hydrostatic balance at the end of the 16th century.

*Archimedean screw, or auger - serves to lift and transport goods, scoop out water. This device is still used today (for example, in Egypt).

*Different types of cranes based on blocks and levers.

* "Celestial Sphere" - the world's first planetarium, with the help of which it was possible to observe the movement of the sun, moon and five planets known then.

* A number close to the number P is the so-called "Archimedean number": 3 1/7; Archimedes himself indicated the accuracy of the approximation of this number. To solve this problem, he built a circle into 96-gons inscribed and circumscribed around it, the sides of which he then measured.

*Discovery of a fundamental law of physics in general and hydrostatics in particular. This law is named after him and consists in the ratio of the buoyancy force, volume and weight of a body immersed in a liquid.

* Being the first theoretician of mechanics, Archimedes introduced thought experiments into it. The first such experiments were his proofs of the law of the lever and the law of Archimedes.

*In 1906, Danish professor Johan Ludwig Heiberg discovered in Constantinople a 174-page prayer book written in the 13th century. The scientist found out that it was a palimpsest, that is, a text written over an old text. This was common practice at the time, as the goatskin leather used to make the pages was very expensive. The old text was scraped off, and a new one was applied on top of it. It turned out that the scraped work was a copy of an unknown treatise by Archimedes. A copy was written in the X century. With the help of ultraviolet and X-ray light, this hitherto unknown work was read. These were works on balance, on measuring the circumference of a sphere and a cylinder, on floating bodies. Currently, this document is stored in the Museum of the city of Baltimore (Maryland, USA).

*Works of Archimedes: Quadrature of a parabola, On a ball and a cylinder, On spirals, On conoids and spheroids, On the equilibrium of plane figures, Epistle to Eratosthenes on the method, On floating bodies, Measurement of a circle, Psammit, Stomachion, Archimedes' problem on bulls, Treatise on construction near the ball of a corporeal figure with fourteen bases, the Book of Lemmas, the Book on the Construction of a Circle Divided into Seven Equal Parts, the Book on Touching Circles.

Archimedes: interesting facts

1.After himself, Archimedes did not leave students, because he did not want to create his own school and prepare successors.

2. Some calculations of Archimedes were repeated only after one and a half thousand years by Newton and Leibniz.

3. Some scholars claim that Archimedes was the inventor of the cannon. So, Leonardo da Vinci even drew a sketch of a steam gun, the invention of which he attributed to an ancient Greek scientist. Plutarch wrote that during the siege of Syracuse, the Romans were fired upon by a certain device that resembled a long tube and "spit out" the kernels.

4. A friend of Archimedes, Heraclid, wrote a biography of the great scientist, but it was lost and now little is known about his life.

5.Some contemporaries considered Archimedes crazy. To demonstrate his skills, the scientist in front of Hieron pulled the triremes ashore using a system of blocks.

6. The Roman general Marcellus, commanding the siege of Syracuse, said: "We will have to stop the war against the geometer."

7.Archimedes is considered one of the best mathematicians and inventors of all time.

9. According to some legends, during the capture of Syracuse, a special detachment of Romans was sent in search of the scientist, who were supposed to capture Archimedes and deliver him to the command. The scientist died only by an absurd accident.

10. Throwing machines of Archimedes could launch stones weighing up to 250 kg. At that time - a unique combat vehicle.

11.Archimedes made the world's first planetarium.

12. Contemporaries considered Archimedes almost a demigod, and his military inventions terrified the Romans, who had never encountered anything like this before.

13. The well-known legend about the mirrors that burned Roman ships has been repeatedly refuted. Most likely, the mirrors were used only to aim the ballistae, which fired on the Roman fleet with incendiary projectiles. There is also an opinion that the Romans were forced to agree to the night assault on the city precisely because of the use of mirrors by the defenders of Syracuse.

14. "Archimedes screw" was invented by a scientist in his youth and was intended for irrigating fields. Today, screws are used in many industries. And in Egypt, they still supply water to the fields.

15. Archimedes considered mathematics to be his best friend.

Monument to Archimedes

photo from internet