Archimedes

Life

Archimedes was born in Syracuse, the most powerful Greek city in Sicily, and may have studied in Alexandria. He spent most of his life in his home city, where he was a friend, and possibly a relative, of King Hiero II. Stories describe a man so absorbed in his work that he forgot to eat, drawing diagrams in the ashes of the fire.

Discoveries

He calculated areas and volumes using methods that anticipated integral calculus, found a remarkably accurate estimate for pi, and proved that a sphere has two-thirds the volume of the cylinder that encloses it, a result he was so proud of that he asked for it to be shown on his tomb. In physics he explained the principle of the lever and discovered the law of buoyancy, supposedly while stepping into a bath and shouting Eureka, meaning I have found it.

The siege of Syracuse

When Rome besieged Syracuse during the Second Punic War, Archimedes designed catapults and a giant claw that could lift attacking ships out of the water. The city fell in 212 BC, and Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier, reportedly while working on a geometry problem, despite orders that he should be spared.