EUREKA - The Archimedes Principle
EUREKA - The Archimedes Principle
Since my primary education, I was startled by the word “Eureka” and origin of the word enthralled me. It was related to Archimedes discovery known as “Archimedes Principle”. In my childhood I used to shout “Eureka” whenever I found a solution to a problem or something new, out of sheer excitement.
Archimedes was born in 287 BC in
the Greek colony of Syracuse a sea port in Sicily. Archimedes was a genius in the fields of
mathematics, physics and mechanical engineering. He was also an inventor,
astronomer and weapon designer. He was the greatest scientist of the classical
age. He was a man who was of his time
and far ahead of his time. His father
Phidias was an aristocrat and an astronomer. Archimedes lived up to the age of 75 years.
Archimedes, the ancient Greek
Scholar, when he stepped into the bath tub noticed that the water level rose - he
suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be
equivalent to the volume his body part that was submerged in the water and he shouted “Eureka!” in Greek that means I have found it.
“The buoyant force acting on a submerged or
floating object is equal to the weight of the displaced fluid”
- Archimedes
principle.
After this discovery he rose from
the bath and ran without changing into clothes through the streets of Syracuse,
Greece shouting Eureka. He was overwhelmed
with the realization of the invention that measurement of irregular object was
possible. He was so excited about the
discovery and he ran shouting “Eureka!”
in his birthday suit in the Syracuse streets to proclaim it to the world.
The ancient scholars and
scientists were found to be absent minded or eccentric and Archimedes was no
exception.
Archimedes being the scientific
advisor and related to King Heiro II,
once engaged a Goldsmith to make a crown and given him a bar of pure gold. When the crown was made he found out that the
Goldsmith cheated him using equal weight of Silver instead of pure gold. This lead to Archimedes belief that not only
the volume effect but also found an object’s density an important indicator of
purity. He found that the gold was more
dense than silver.
Archimedes theory applies to
buoyancy that things float in the fluid or water. A copper ball in the water will sink whereas
a wooden ball will stay afloat. This
great discovery of buoyancy led to the manufacturing of Ship or Vessel, so as
the boat.
“Give me a lever long enough
and a fulcrum on which to place it
And I shall move the world”.
-
Archimedes
Archimedes discovered levers,
fulcrum and pulleys.
The pulley reminds me of how we
used to fetch water from a well in my native land by using a pulley, bucket and
rope and later it was replaced by a motor engine.
There is an interesting story
that his contemporaries challenged him to move a ship that endeavor would have
deployed many hundreds of laborers to drag it.
They incited him saying that it will be proving his claim of -“give me a
place to stand and I shall move the earth” - and you won’t believe that he did
it so easily by using a compound complex pulley system.
This discovery led to modern
era’s infrastructure built up cranes.
The Archimedes laws of lever resulted in first steam engine as well as
Jet engine.
Archimedes’ discovery of spiral
wheel resulted in the manufacturing of bicycle and gear byke.
I would like to mention here the
famous quote of Felix Klien that –
“The
mathematicians like Archimedes,
Newton and Gauss,
Always united theory and
applications in equal measure”.
Archimedes found the number of
diameters in the circumference of a circle.
Archimedes was an inventor. He invented something called the Archimedes screw or Archimedean
screw. The hydraulic screw has been used to lift water to higher levels
for centuries. The Archimedean screw
was originally used for irrigation in the river Nile. The Archimedean screw consists of a screw inside of a hollow pipe. This screw is normally turned by a windmill or
by manual labor. As the screw is turned at the tube, it scoops up volume of
water. The amount of water collected,
slides up the spiral tube as crank is turned.
The water then spills out the top of the tube when it finally reaches
the top. In some of the developing
countries Archimedes Screw is used for irrigation even in the contemporary
world.
The Claw of Archimedes is a
weapon that he devised in order to guard the city of Syracuse. The Claw of
Archimedes is also referred to as “the Ship Shaker” comprised of a crane-like
arm from which a large metal-grasping hook was hung. When the Claw was flung at
an attacking ship, the arm would swing upward, lifting the ship from the water
and perhaps even sinking it.
Among the war machines attributed
to him are Catapult – a mirror
system for focusing the sun’s rays on the invaders’ ships and setting them on
fire.
Integral Calculus - a
mathematical theory that derives the areas and volume of spaces and the
relationships between variables such as Speed, Distance and Time remains one of
Archimedes greatest accomplishments.
Archimedes was one of the
greatest mathematicians of all time.
He made a major contribution to the mathematical world and without
Archimedes the mathematics would not have been the same. His writing was that
of a genius.
“Mathematics reveal its secrets only to
those who approach it
with pure love, for its own
beauty”
-
Archimedes
Another invention was that of a miniature planetarium, a
sphere whose motion imitated the earth, sun, moon and the five planets that were
then known to exist.
Archimedes lived in Syracuse
except for his education in Alexandria, Egypt. Prior to Archimedes arrival in
Alexandria, there lived a mathematician and great scholar named Euclid who
influenced Archimedes’ works. Alexandria
in those days was famous for great learning and scholarship and was known as
the intellectual capital of the world.
In the third century BC, Syracuse
was a hub of art, science and commerce. Archimedes after his return from
Alexandria spent rest of his life in Syracuse with his inventions and thought
processes.
Immersed in the scientific culture of ancient
Greece, Archimedes blossomed into one of the finest minds that our world has
known.
Archimedes established strong
foundations in the field of Physics particularly in statics, hydrostatics,
infinitesimal and explained the principle of the lever.
Archimedes achievements –
·
Archimedes principle of density
·
Siege machines
·
Screw Pump
·
Formulae for the volumes of surprises
·
Approximate value of “0”.
This
brilliant personality’s inventions and theories benefited all forms of modern science.
He made invaluable contributions
to Geometry, Arithmetic and Mechanics.
Archimedes’ major works are -
·
The Sand Reckoner
·
The Cattle Problem
·
The Method of Mechanical Theorems
·
The Quadrature of the Parabola
·
On the Sphere and Cylinder
·
Measurement of the circle
·
On Conoids and Sphereoids
·
On Floating Bodies
·
Stomachion
A sphere carved within a cylinder
covers the tomb of Archimedes. This is
based on a remarkable invention made by Archimedes proving that the two thirds
of the volume and the surface area of the cylinder (including the bases of the
latter). This is considered as his greatest mathematical accomplishment.
Let me conclude with the couplet
of Mikhail Lermontov –
“Oh vanity!
you are the lever by means of
which Archimedes wished to lift the
earth!”
The contributions of Archimedes to the world was so vast that unmeasured
laurels were showered upon the great mathematician and a genius from the time
immemorial. There were many countries’ stamps, coins, monuments, institutions,
scholarships and achievement awards named after him.
posted by Unknown @ 01:22
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