Archimedes Principle example essay topic

"The Wise One.".. "The Master.".. "The Great Geometer" Archimedes is considered one of the three greatest mathematicians of all time along with Newton and Gauss. In his own time, he was known as "the wise one,"the master" and "the great geometer" and his works and inventions brought him fame that lasts to this very day.

He was one of the last great Greek mathematicians. Born in 287 B.C., in Syracuse, a Greek seaport colony in Sicily, Archimedes was the son of Phidias, an astronomer. Except for his studies at Euclid's school in Alexandria, he spent his entire life in his birthplace. Archimedes proved to be a master at mathematics and spent most of his time contemplating new problems to solve, becoming at times so involved in his work that he forgot to eat. Lacking the blackboards and paper of modern times, he used any available surface, from the dust on the ground to ashes from an extinguished fire, to draw his geometric figures. Never giving up an opportunity to ponder his work, after bathing and anointing himself with olive oil, he would trace figures in the oil on his own skin.

Much of Archimedes fame comes from his relationship with Hiero, the king of Syracuse, and Gel on, Hiero's son. The great geometer had a close friendship with and may have been related to the monarch. In any case, he seemed to make a hobby out of solving the king's most complicated problems to the utter amazement of the sovereign. At one time, the king ordered a gold crown and gave the goldsmith the exact amount of metal to make it. When Hiero received it, the crown had the correct weight but the monarch suspected that some silver had been used instead of the gold.

Since he could not prove it, he brought the problem to Archimedes. One day while considering the question, "the wise one" entered his bathtub and recognized that the amount of water that overflowed the tub was proportional the amount of his body that was submerged. This observation, which is now known as Archimedes' Principle, gave him the means to solve the problem. He was so excited that he ran naked through the streets of Syracuse shouting "Eureka!

Eureka!" (I have found it! ). The fraudulent goldsmith was brought to justice. Another time, Archimedes stated, "Give me a place to stand on and I will move the earth". King Hiero, who was absolutely astonished by the statement, asked him to prove it. In the harbor was a ship that had proved impossible to launch even by the combined efforts of all the men of Syracuse.

Archimedes, who had been examining the properties of levers and pulleys, built a machine that allowed him the single-handedly move the ship from a distance away. Archimedes also has many inventions. One invention is the Archimedes screw. This was made to remove water from the hold of a large ship.

Some of his other inventions were the watering screw, and the miniature planetarium. However, his theoretical work was his main calling. The work with levers and pulleys helped make things easier. The discovery of the displacement of water in the bathtub led into hydrostatics. He also did work in integral calculus and work on pi. There are many different stories of how Archimedes died but the most believable are the following: 1.

Archimedes was carrying mathematical instruments, dials, spheres, and angles to Marcellus. A soldier saw him and thought he was carrying gold in a vessel. He killed him for the gold. 2. A soldier found Archimedes and told him to follow him to Marcellus.

Archimedes declined to follow him until he finished his problem this enraged the soldier, so he drew his sword and killed him. 3. While Archimedes was working, a soldier came to take him away to Marcellus. He started dragging him away from his work. Archimedes proceeded to tell the Roman "Stand away from my diagram". As the soldier pulled him away, Archimedes turned and noticed that he was Roman.

He cried, someone give me one of my engines". This scared the Roman so much that he drew his sword and killed him. 4. Archimedes was unaware of the taking of the city, as he was intent on working on a problem by drawing figures in the dust. As the soldier came to capture him, he stepped in the dust where Archimedes had been working. Archimedes said, "Don't disturb my circles".

This made the soldier so mad that he drew his sword and slew him. 5. When the soldier came to kill Archimedes, he asked the soldier to wait and allow him to finish the problem he was working on. The soldier, unmoved by the request, was angered to draw his sword and kill Archimedes.

Archimedes was buried in Syracuse, where he was born, were he grew up, where he worked, and where he died. On his grave, there is an inscription of pi, his most famous discovery. They also placed on his tombstone the figure of a sphere inscribed inside a cylinder and the 2: 3 ratio of the volumes between them, the solution to the problem he considered his greatest achievement. Archimedes was one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.

However, he was not only a great mathematician, but also a great person. He committed his entire life to science and math, however, was eventually killed in the process. He made many accomplishments to mathematics and science, which people are still using today. Archimedes Principle "This principle states that a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid buoys up a body immersed in a fluid. The principle applies to both floating and submerged bodies and to all fluids, i. e., liquids and gases.

It explains not only the buoyancy of ships and other vessels in water but also the rise of a balloon in the air and the apparent loss of weight of objects underwater. In determining whether a given body will float in a given fluid, both weight and volume must be considered; that is, the relative density, or weight per unit of volume, of the body compared to the fluid determines the buoyant force. If the body is less dense than the fluid, it will float or, in the case of a balloon, it will rise. If the body is denser than the fluid, it will sink. Relative density also determines the proportion of a floating body that will be submerged in a fluid. If the body is two thirds as dense as the fluid, then two thirds of its volume will be submerged, displacing in the process a volume of fluid whose weight is equal to the entire weight of the body.

In the case of a submerged body, the apparent weight of the body is equal to its weight in air less the weight of an equal volume of fluid. The fluid most often encountered in applications of Archimedes' principle is water, and the specific gravity of a substance is a convenient measure of its relative density compared to water. In calculating the buoyant force on a body, however, one must also take into account the shape and position of the body. A steel rowboat placed on end into the water will sink because the density of steel is much greater than that of water. However, in its normal, keel-down position, the effective volume of the boat includes all the air inside it, so that its average density is then less than that of water, and as a result, it will float".

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