Eureka Man: The Life and Legacy of Archimedes

About this book

The extraordinary genius of Archimedesscientist mathematician engineer and showman. Many of us know little about Archimedes other than his Eureka exclamation upon discovering that he could immerse an object in a full tub of water and measure the spillage to determine the objects volume. That simple observation helped establish the key principles of buoyancy that govern the flotation of hot-air balloons boats and denizens of the sea. Archimedes had a profound impact on the development of mathematics and science: from square roots to the stability of ships; number systems to levers; the value of pi to the size of the universe. Yet this same cerebral man developed machines of war that held at bay the greatest army of antiquity. Ironically Archimedes reputation swelled to mythic proportions in the ancient world for his feats of engineering: the hand-cranked irrigation devicecommonly known as Archimedes screwand his ingenuous use of levers pulleys and ropes to launch single-handedly a fully laden ship! His rediscovered treatises guided nascent thinkers out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance. Indeed Archimedes cumulative record of achievement places him among the exalted ranks of Aristotle Leonardo da Vinci Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. Eureka Man brings to life for general readers the genius of Archimedes offering succinct and understandable explanations of some of his amazing discoveries and innovations.