The Many Discoveries of Archimedes

Archimedes was a greek citizen. He was born in 287 B.C. in a city called Syracuse on an island they called Sicily. When Archimedes was born they hung an olive branch on the door post as a sign that Phidias had a son. One of the slaves would put the baby in warm water and then wrap him in a woolen band all the way from his neck to his toes. As Archimedes grew so did his mind. He never stopped stopped thinking, he never stopped getting great ideas. His mind was always racing with ideas and facts and problems that he could solve. Archimedes just had a natural urge to learn that not many people have today. Her never really had a bunch no advanced material to use to help him learn all he had was the basics and there wasn’t really a lot of basics.

Archimedes discovered many things like the laws of the lever and pulleys, which led to machines that could move heavy loads, or increase speed, or make direction changes. He discovered the principal of buoyancy, which tells us why things sink and why some things float and why some things rise into the air. He also discovered the principal of specific gravity, which is one of the basic tests of elements. (an element is a basic substance). Archimedes discovered that every element, and every combination of elements has a different density or weight for its size. This is a good way to tell one substance from another, even if they do look familiar. The density of an equal amount of water, is its specific gravity.

Archimedes wrote brilliantly on almost every mathematical subject except Algebra, which was not yet discovered. The reason they didn’t have Algebra is because they didn’t have a zero. In order to have Algebra you need to have a zero. The zero was not discovered until way after Archimedes died. Archimedes was so important with math because he is the one who discovered almost all math except Algebra. People like us just feed off him and steal his answers and got the easy route and he gave us a head start.

Archimedes did not just excel in math but also in astronomy. Archimedes did not discover astronomy but he was very good at learning it. The Egyptians were the the ones who discovered it along with the Babylonians. They made very careful records, but not just because they wanted to and thought it would be a good idea but because they were very helpful in their everyday living. The observations helped very much because they could almost always predict the next eclipse, tides, and floods. Also knowing the positions of the stars and the sun helped them to navigate their ships. The Greeks could see from the beginning that there not only a grandeur about the stars, but an order and discipline.

Archimedes did so many great things, discovered so many great things, and he learned so many great things. His discoveries will help and do help so many people in our society today including you and me. We may not realize it but we use everything Archimedes discovered in our everyday lives. For example we use math in our school. People use his discoveries at work and at home and we don’t even realize it.