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Archimedes was a renowned mathematician and inventor of the ancient world.
He was born between 290 and 280 B.C. in the Greek colony of Syracuse, Sicily,
and with the exception of several years in Egypt (possibly in Alexandria), spent
his life there. He died in Syracuse around 211 during the Romans' sack of the
city. The war machines he designed helped delay the city's fall for more than
a year. His true importance, however, was perceived only after his works were
rediscovered in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His ideas influenced
the work of Galileo (1564-1642) and Kepler (1571-1630) among others.
Archimedes is most famous for discovering the relationship between the surface
and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He is also known for
the Archimedes principle (the formulation of hydrostatic principles) and the
Archimedes screw (a device designed to pump water from a ship's hull). Like
Euclid, his work affirms the scientific and philosophical endeavor to find order
in the natural world.
Bibliography
Works by the Author
Archimedes. Selected Works. Translated by Thomas L. Heath. The Classics
of the St. Johns Program. 1947.
Archimedes. Geometrical Solutions Derived from Mechanisms. Translated
by David Eugene Smith. LaSalle: Open Court Publishing, 1942.
Archimedes. The Works of Archimedes. Translated by Thomas L. Heath.
New York: Dover Publications.
Source
The biographical material about the author originally appeared on The
Goodrich Room: Interactive Tour website.
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