Biography of Archimedes. Outstanding discoveries of Archimedes

Biography

Archimedes (Ἀρχιμήδης; 287 BC - 212 BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician, physicist and engineer from Syracuse. He made many discoveries in geometry. He laid the foundations of mechanics, hydrostatics, was the author of a number of important inventions.

Information about the life of Archimedes left us Polybius , Titus Livy, Cicero, Plutarch, Vitruvius and others. Almost all of them lived many years later than the events described, and it is difficult to assess the reliability of this information.

Archimedes was born in Syracuse, a Greek colony on the island of Sicily. Archimedes' father may have been the mathematician and astronomer Phidias. According to Plutarch, Archimedes was closely related to Hieron II, tyrant of Syracuse. For training, Archimedes went to Alexandria of Egypt - the scientific and cultural center of that time.

Alexandria

In Alexandria, Archimedes met and became friends with famous scientists: the astronomer Conon, the versatile scientist Eratosthenes, with whom he then corresponded until the end of his life. At that time, Alexandria was famous for its library, which contained more than 700 thousand manuscripts.

Apparently this is where Archimedes got to know the work Democritus, Eudoxus and other remarkable Greek geometers, whom he mentioned in his writings.

After completing his studies, Archimedes returned to Sicily. In Syracuse, he was surrounded by attention and did not need funds. Due to the prescription of years, the life of Archimedes is closely intertwined with the legends about him.

legends

Already during the life of Archimedes, legends were created around his name, the reason for which were his amazing inventions, which produced a stunning effect on his contemporaries. There is a story about how Archimedes was able to determine whether the crown of King Hieron was made of pure gold, or a jeweler mixed a significant amount of silver into it. The specific gravity of gold was known, but the difficulty was to accurately determine the volume of the crown: after all, it had irregular shape! Archimedes thought about this problem all the time. Once he was taking a bath and noticed that such an amount of water was flowing out of it, what was the volume of his body immersed in the bath, and then a brilliant idea came to his mind: by immersing the crown in water, you can determine its volume by measuring the volume of water displaced by it . According to legend, Archimedes jumped naked into the street shouting "Eureka!" (ancient Greek εὕρηκα), that is, “Found!”. At that moment, the basic law of hydrostatics, the law of Archimedes, was discovered.

Another legend tells that the heavy multi-deck ship Syracusia, built by Hieron as a gift to the Egyptian king Ptolemy, could not be launched. Archimedes built a system of blocks (polyspast), with the help of which he was able to do this work with one movement of his hand. According to legend, Archimedes said at the same time: “If I had another Earth at my disposal, on which I could stand, I would move ours” (in another version: “Give me a fulcrum, and I will turn the world upside down”).

Siege of Syracuse

The engineering genius of Archimedes manifested itself with particular force during the siege of Syracuse by the Romans in 212 BC. e. during the Second Punic War. At this point, Archimedes was already 75 years old. A detailed description of the siege of Syracuse by the Roman general Marcellus and the participation of Archimedes in the defense is contained in the writings of Plutarch and Titus Livy.

The powerful throwing machines built by Archimedes threw heavy stones at the Roman troops. Thinking that they would be safe at the very walls of the city, the Romans rushed there, but at that time light short-range throwing machines threw a hail of cannonballs at them. Powerful cranes grabbed the ships with iron hooks, lifted them up, and then threw them down, so that the ships turned over and sank. AT last years Several experiments were carried out in order to verify the veracity of the description of this "superweapon of antiquity". The constructed structure has shown its full performance.

The Romans were forced to abandon the idea of ​​taking the city by storm and proceeded to the siege. The famous historian of antiquity Polybius wrote: “Such is the miraculous power of one person, one talent, skillfully directed to some business ... the Romans could quickly take over the city if someone removed one elder from among the Syracusans.”

According to one legend, during the siege, the Roman fleet was burned by the defenders of the city, who, using mirrors and shields polished to a shine, focused on them Sun rays by order of Archimedes. There is an opinion that the ships were set on fire by accurately thrown incendiary shells, and the focused beams served only as an aiming mark for the ballistas. However, in an experiment by the Greek scientist Ioannis Sakkas (1973), a plywood model of a Roman ship was set on fire from a distance of 50 m using 70 copper mirrors. However, the authenticity of the legend is doubtful; neither Plutarch nor other ancient historians mention mirrors when describing the defensive inventions of Archimedes; for the first time this episode was found in the treatise of Anthemius of Tralles (VI century), one of the architects of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (the treatise was devoted to convex and concave mirrors). In the 12th century, the legend gained popularity after the publication of an extensive chronicle of world history by John Zonara.

In the autumn of 212 B.C. e. due to the betrayal of Syracuse, they were taken by the Romans. At the same time, Archimedes was killed.

Death of Archimedes

The story of the death of Archimedes at the hands of the Romans exists in several versions:

The story of John Zetz (Chiliad, book II): in the midst of the battle, the 75-year-old Archimedes sat on the threshold of his house, reflecting in depth on the drawings he had made right on the road sand. At this time, a Roman soldier running past stepped on the drawing, and the indignant scientist rushed at the Roman with a cry: “Do not touch my drawings!” The soldier stopped and cold-bloodedly cut the old man down with his sword.
Plutarch's story: “A soldier approached Archimedes and announced that Marcellus was calling him. But Archimedes insistently asked him to wait one minute, so that the task he was engaged in would not remain unsolved. The soldier, who did not care about his proof, got angry and pierced him with his sword. Plutarch claims that the consul Marcellus was angry at the death of Archimedes, whom he supposedly ordered not to be touched.
Archimedes himself went to Marcellus to bring him his instruments for measuring the magnitude of the Sun. On the way, his burden caught the attention of the Roman soldiers. They decided that the scientist was carrying gold or jewelry in a casket, and, without thinking twice, cut his throat.
The story of Diodorus Siculus: “Making a sketch of a mechanical diagram, he bent over it. And when the Roman soldier came up and began to drag him as a prisoner, he, wholly absorbed in his diagram, not seeing who was in front of him, said: “Get out of my diagram!” Then, when the man continued to drag him, he, turning and recognizing in the Roman, exclaimed: “Quickly, someone, give me one of my cars!” The Roman, frightened, killed the weak old man, one whose achievements were a miracle. As soon as Marcellus found out about this, he was very upset and, together with noble citizens and Romans, arranged a magnificent funeral among the graves of his ancestors. As for the killer, he seems to have been beheaded."
“Roman history from the founding of the city” by Titus Livius (Book XXV, 31): “It is reported that when, with the strong turmoil that the panic that spread in the taken city could cause, the soldiers fled, plundering, many disgusting examples of malice and greed; by the way, one warrior killed Archimedes, busy drawing geometric figures on the sand, not knowing who he was. Marcellus, they say, was upset by this, attended to the burial of the murdered, even sought out the relatives of Archimedes, and his name and memory of him brought respect and safety to the latter.

Cicero, who was quaestor in Sicily in 75 BC. e., writes in the "Tusculan conversations" (book V) that he was in 75 BC. e., 137 years after these events, it was possible to discover the dilapidated tomb of Archimedes; on it, as bequeathed by Archimedes, there was an image of a ball inscribed in a cylinder.

Scientific activity

Maths

According to Plutarch, Archimedes was simply obsessed with mathematics. He forgot about food, did not care about himself at all.

The works of Archimedes related to almost all areas of mathematics of that time: he owns remarkable research in geometry, arithmetic, and algebra. So, he found all the semi-regular polyhedra that now bear his name, significantly developed the theory of conic sections, gave a geometric method for solving cubic equations of the form x^2 (a \pm x) = b, the roots of which he found using the intersection of a parabola and a hyperbola . Archimedes also carried out a complete study of these equations, that is, he found under what conditions they will have real positive different roots and under what conditions the roots will coincide.

However, the main mathematical achievements of Archimedes relate to problems that are now classified as mathematical analysis. The Greeks before Archimedes were able to determine the area of ​​polygons and a circle, the volume of a prism and a cylinder, a pyramid and a cone. But only Archimedes found a much more general method for calculating areas or volumes; for this he perfected and masterfully applied the method of exhaustion of Eudoxus of Cnidus. In his Epistle to Eratosthenes on the Method (sometimes called the Method of Mechanical Theorems), he used infinitesimals to calculate volumes. The ideas of Archimedes subsequently formed the basis of integral calculus.

Archimedes was able to establish that the volumes of a cone and a ball inscribed in a cylinder, and the cylinder itself, are related as 1:2:3.

He considered the determination of the surface and volume of a ball to be his best achievement - a task that no one before him could solve. Archimedes asked to knock out a ball inscribed in a cylinder on his grave.

In his essay Quadrature of a Parabola, Archimedes proved that the area of ​​a segment of a parabola cut off from it by a straight line is 4/3 of the area of ​​a triangle inscribed in this segment (see figure). To prove it, Archimedes calculated the sum of an infinite series:

Each term of the series is the total area of ​​the triangles inscribed in the part of the parabola segment not covered by the previous members of the series.

In addition to the above, Archimedes calculated the surface area for the segment of the ball and the coil of the "Archimedes' spiral" discovered by him, determined the volumes of the segments of the ball, ellipsoid, paraboloid and two-sheeted hyperboloid of revolution.

The next problem is related to the geometry of curves. Let some curved line be given. How to define a tangent at any of its points? Or, if we put this problem into the language of physics, let us know the path of some body at each moment of time. How to determine its speed at any point? At school they teach how to draw a tangent to a circle. The ancient Greeks were also able to find tangents to the ellipse, hyperbola and parabola. The first general method for solving this problem was also found by Archimedes. This method subsequently formed the basis of differential calculus.

Of great importance for the development of mathematics was the ratio of circumference to diameter calculated by Archimedes.

Mechanics

Archimedes became famous for many mechanical designs. The lever was known even before Archimedes, but only Archimedes outlined his complete theory and successfully applied it in practice. Plutarch reports that Archimedes built many block-lever mechanisms in the port of Syracuse to facilitate the lifting and transportation of heavy loads. The screw (auger) invented by him for scooping out water is still used in Egypt.

Archimedes is also the first theoretician of mechanics. He begins his book On the Balance flat figures» with the proof of the law of the lever. This proof is based on the axiom that equal bodies on equal arms must necessarily balance. Similarly, the book "On the Float of Bodies" begins with a proof of the law of Archimedes. These proofs of Archimedes represent the first thought experiments in the history of mechanics.

Astronomy

Archimedes built a planetarium or " celestial sphere”, during the movement of which it was possible to observe the movement of five planets, the rising of the Sun and the Moon, the phases and eclipses of the Moon, the disappearance of both bodies behind the horizon line. Engaged in the problem of determining the distances to the planets; presumably, his calculations were based on a system of the world with a center in the Earth, but the planets Mercury, Venus and Mars, revolving around the Sun and, together with it, around the Earth. In his essay "Psammit" conveyed information about heliocentric system world of Aristarchus of Samos.

Compositions

The following have been preserved to this day:

Parabola quadrature / τετραγωνισμὸς παραβολῆς - the area of ​​the parabola segment is determined.
On the ball and cylinder / περὶ σφαίρας καὶ κυλίνδρου - it is proved that the volume of the ball is 2/3 of the volume of the cylinder circumscribed around it, and the surface area of ​​the ball is equal to the area of ​​the lateral surface of this cylinder.
About spirals / περὶ ἑλίκων - the properties of Archimedes' spiral are derived.
About conoids and spheroids / περὶ κωνοειδέων καὶ σφαιροειδέων - volumes of segments of paraboloids, hyperboloids and ellipsoids of revolution are determined.
On the balance of plane figures / περὶ ἰσορροπιῶν - the law of balance of the lever is derived; it is proved that the center of gravity of a flat triangle is at the point of intersection of its medians; are the centers of gravity of the parallelogram, trapezoid and parabolic segment.
Epistle to Eratosthenes about the method / πρὸς Ἐρατοσθένην ἔφοδος - discovered in 1906, partially duplicates the work “On the Sphere and Cylinder” in terms of subject matter, but here the mechanical method of proving mathematical theorems is used.
About floating bodies / περὶ τῶν ὀχουμένων - the law of floating bodies is deduced; the problem of the equilibrium of the section of a paraboloid simulating a ship's hull is considered.
Measurement of a circle / κύκλου μέτρησις - only an excerpt from this work has come down to us. It is in it that Archimedes calculates an approximation for the number \pi.
Psummit / ψαμμίτης - a way of writing very large numbers is introduced.
Stomachion / στομάχιον - a description of a popular game is given.
The problem of Archimedes about bulls / πρόβλημα βοικόν - a problem is set, reduced to the Pell equation.
A number of works by Archimedes have survived only in Arabic translation:

Treatise on the construction of a bodily figure near the ball with fourteen bases;
Book of Lemmas;
A book about building a circle divided into seven equal parts;
A book about touching circles.

Archimedes was born in 287 BC, in Syracuse. A relative of the future scientist was Hieron, who later became the ruler of Syracuse Hieron II. Archimedes' father Phidias, an outstanding astronomer and mathematician, was at court. For this reason, the boy received a decent education.

Realizing that he lacked theoretical knowledge, the young man soon went to study in Alexandria, where at that time the brightest minds of antiquity worked.

Archimedes spent most of his time in the Library of Alexandria. There he studied the works of Democritus and Eudoxus. During his training, Archimedes became close to Eratosthenes and Conon. The friendship lasted for many years.

Works and achievements

After completing his studies, Archimedes returned to his native Syracuse and took up the position of astronomer at the court of Hieron II. But not only the stars attracted his attention.

The position of an astronomer was not burdensome. Archimedes had the opportunity to study mechanics, physics and mathematics. At this time, the principle of the lever was applied by the researcher to solve several problems in geometry.

The conclusions were detailed in the work “On the equilibrium of plane figures”.

A little later, Archimedes wrote the essay “On the Measurement of a Circle”. He was able to calculate the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its length.

Studying a brief biography of Archimedes, you should know that he also paid attention to geometric optics. He carried out several interesting experiments on the refraction of light. The theorem has come down to our days. It proves that against the background of the reflection of a beam of light from a mirror surface, the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection.

Gifts to Syracuse

Archimedes made many useful discoveries. All of them were dedicated to the native city of the scientist. Archimedes actively developed the idea of ​​using the lever. In the port of Syracuse, he managed to create a whole system of lever-and-block mechanisms that speed up the process of transporting heavy, oversized cargo.

With the help of the Archimedean screw, or auger, it became possible to extract water from low-lying reservoirs. Thanks to this, irrigation canals began to receive moisture uninterruptedly.

The main service to Syracuse was provided by Archimedes in 212. The scientist took an active part in the defense of Syracuse, which were besieged by Roman troops. Archimedes managed to create some of the most powerful throwing machines. When the Romans broke into the city, many of them fell under the blows of stones fired from these machines.

Archimedean cranes easily overturned Roman ships. This led to the fact that the Roman soldiers abandoned the assault on the city and began a long siege.

Unfortunately, in the end, the city was taken.

Death of a scientist

The story of the death of Archimedes was transmitted by John Zetz, Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus and Titus Livius. The details of the death of the great scientist vary. One thing is common: Archimedes was killed by a certain Roman soldier. According to one version, the Roman did not wait until Archimedes completed the drawing, and for refusing to follow the consul, he stabbed him with a sword.

Another version says that the scientist was killed on the way to Marcellus. The Roman soldiers seemed suspicious of the instruments for measuring the Sun, which Archimedes carried in his hands.

Consul Marcellus, having learned about the death of a scientist, was upset. The body of Archimedes was buried with great honors, and "great respect" was shown to his relatives.

Other biography options

• One day Archimedes exclaimed, “Give me a foothold, and I will move the Earth!” In the eyes of his contemporaries, the outstanding scientist was practically a demigod.
• According to legend, the Syracusans managed to burn several Roman ships. This was done with huge mirrors, amazing properties which were also discovered by Archimedes.

More than two thousand years ago, the entire western part of the coast mediterranean sea was engulfed in the flames of a grand war. Military operations took place in Italy and Sicily, North Africa and Spain. This war is known in world history as the second Punic War, in which Rome and Carthage fought for dominance in the Mediterranean.

The famous commander from Carthage - Hannibal, in order to deliver a mortal blow to the very heart of the enemy, conceived a rather bold plan to fight Rome - in Italy itself. In 218 B.C. new era with a large army and fighting elephants, he crossed the Pyrenees, southern Gaul and through the Alps penetrated into northern Italy. On the fields of Italy, Hannibal defeated three Roman armies in succession and in 216 dealt a crushing blow to the Romans at Cannae. The entire Roman army was destroyed. A number of Roman allies (Capua and others) went over to the side of Carthage. The freedom-loving citizens of the city of Syracuse also rebelled against Roman rule.

Syracuse, one of the greatest cities of antiquity, the center of Greek science and art in the West, was a Greek colony located on the southeastern coast of Sicily. The circumference of the powerful city wall was 23.5 kilometers. For a long time Syracuse were independent state, the first Greek maritime power. But in the III century. BC, Rome advanced on Sicily from the north, and Carthage from the south. During the First Punic War, Sicily was conquered by the Romans, and the inhabitants of Syracuse had to accept Roman hegemony.

In order to punish the rebellious for the uprising, the Roman fleet and army, led by the talented commander Marcus Claudius Marcellus, approached the city in 213. Horror seized the inhabitants. Marcellus had just stormed another Sicilian city, Leontine, and executed two thousand defectors from the Roman camp. The same fate awaited this city.

Over a hundred Roman ships entered Syracuse harbor. Marcellus built them in order of battle. Linked in pairs, penthers with wooden towers, lifting machines and siege weapons came close to the wall. Marcellus signaled for the machines to raise the drawbridges to the level of the walls and lower them onto the walls. On the lowered bridges, the Roman soldiers were supposed to break into the city with an indomitable avalanche. The fall of the city seemed inevitable. The assault began from the sea and land. But no sooner had the vehicles on penthers lifted the drawbridges, than the catapults and ballistae had had time to throw their shells, when something unexpected happened.

Iron hooks and “paws” unexpectedly descended from huge levers placed on the battlements of the walls. They clung to the bows of the ships, lifted them up, overturned, smashed them against the coastal rocks and cliffs at the foot of the city wall, drowned them in the depths of the sea. Then Marcellus, according to the Greek historian Plutarch, advanced a ram on the platform. When he approached the wall, the townspeople threw several stones weighing more than a hundred kilograms at him. They completely smashed it. The stones were followed by lead balls, huge logs that sank ships in the sea.

Broken Roman ships moved away from the city wall. Marcellus decided to resume the assault at night. He expected that the machines throwing shells would be powerless at night. Projectiles thrown at random will fly over the heads of the besiegers. But the talented leader of the defense took this circumstance into account: he positioned his spear-throwing machines so that they constantly threw out short spears that hit the enemy.

The Roman fleet received a well-deserved lesson. The same fate befell the Roman army from the side of the land. And here the Roman siege weapons and warriors were met with iron hooks, hooks, "scorpions" that picked up the soldiers and threw them on the stones. The proud Roman had to give up his thoughts of taking the city by storm. He decided to move to a blockade and starve the inhabitants out. But it was difficult for the army to cordon off the entire city, and the inhabitants maintained contact with the outside world.

Archimedes - life and scientific works

Who was this most talented engineer, organizer of defense, builder of ingenious machines, who forced the invincible Roman army to retreat?

It was the greatest physicist and mathematician of antiquity - Archimedes, who applied all his brilliant abilities to organize the defense of his native city.

Archimedes was born in Syracuse in 287 BC. According to the famous Roman politician and orator Cicero, Archimedes was low social status lived in poverty. Plutarch claims that Archimedes was fond of mathematics already in childhood. Big influence had on the young man a trip to Egypt, where he visited the city of Alexandria, the center of Hellenic culture. Returning to his homeland, he devoted himself entirely to science and wrote a number of brilliant mathematical works.

Most Greek scientists IV-III centuries. BC. treated not only condescendingly, but also somewhat contemptuously towards mathematics, if it pursued utilitarian goals. Archimedes did not dissociate himself from the people and did not lock himself in his office from the domestic needs of his fellow citizens. He tried to apply his knowledge to practical life, to make all the achievements of science the property of the people and often demonstrated his discoveries to the citizens of Syracuse.

Unfortunately, not all the works of the genius survived. AT different time The following writings have been found:

1. On the equilibrium of plane figures.
2. On the quadrature of a parabola.
3. About floating bodies.
4. On the measurement of a circle.
5. About a sphere and a cylinder.
6. About conoids and spheroids, i.e. about bodies learned from the rotation of various figures.
7. About spirals.
8. "Psummit".
9. Separate theorems (lemmas).
10. Stamachion - about the permutation of flat figures.

In 1907, a new manuscript of the "Ephodik" (manual) was found, which contains theorems on the volumes of cones, as well as spheroids and conoids.

The following works of the scientist are considered lost:

1. About a heptagon in a circle.
2. About the contact of circles.
3. About parallel lines.
4. About triangles.
5. About definitions and data.
6. Book "Archai".

In the works "On the ball and the cylinder" the scientist proves that the ratio of the volumes of the cone, hemisphere and cylinder with the same grounds and the heights are equal to the ratio 1:2:3.

Among other problems proposed in the second book is the famous problem of dividing a ball by a plane into two parts. Archimedes gave the correct solution to this problem, bringing it to a problem of an algebraic nature. Archimedes attached special importance to this work of his.

In the book on the spiral, the scientist considers the properties of the so-called Archimedean spiral.

In Psammit, he set out to prove that gigantic numbers can be expressed.

In the works "On Floating Bodies" Archimedes establishes the basic principles of hydrostatics and hydrodynamics. This law was found thanks to the following case. The ruler of Syracuse ordered a gold crown from a jeweler. But he was informed that the jeweler hid some of the gold and replaced it with silver! The king could not verify the correctness of the report and turned to the scientist with a request to find out how much silver was mixed.

Archimedes, while taking a bath, drew attention to the fact that as much water flows out of the bath as his body displaces. Delighted by this discovery with the exclamation "Eureka! Eureka!”, he jumped out of the bath and ran undressed to test his theory. Archimedes is credited with up to forty discoveries in the field of mechanics. When the Syracusan king built his famous ship with a displacement of 4,000 tons, Archimedes supplied this ship with a stone-throwing machine that threw stones weighing 80 kg and spears for a considerable distance. He built a screw, named after him the Archimedean screw. This is a water-lifting machine, in which a helical spiral passes inside a cylindrical pipe. The pipe is open at both ends and placed obliquely. With strong rotation, the pipe captures water at the lower end, the water rises in a spiral and pours out at the upper end. There is evidence to suggest that the Archimedean screw was used to dry swamps in Egypt. In the future, he served as the basis for the construction of the propeller of the ship, and found application in the automotive industry.

The scientist developed the theory of the composite block, lever and screw and applied them in practical life. With the help of blocks, he moved heavy weights. Archimedes owns the famous exclamation: "Give me a fulcrum, and I will turn the Earth."

He built a planetarium or "air globe" that rotated through a system of blocks. The planetarium showed the movement of the planets around the Earth.

Death of Archimedes

But back to the city besieged by the Romans. The siege of the city has been going on for three years. Archimedes mobilized all his knowledge by building new machines. Popular rumor added legendary ones to his skillful structures (some writers, for example, say that Archimedes allegedly built incendiary glasses and with their help collected the sun's rays, pointed them at Roman ships and burned them).

The class struggle intensified among the besieged. The Syracusan nobility, who supported the side of Rome, entered into negotiations with Marcellus, and the city was taken by the Romans due to the betrayal of the nobility. Marcellus allowed his warriors to "plunder treasures and capture slaves." Embittered by the long siege, hungry for prey, the Roman soldiers rushed like bloodthirsty jackals to the defenseless city. They broke into dwellings, robbed jewelry, mercilessly killing residents, including old people and children.

Deep in his thoughts, Archimedes sat over the drawings. He described with compasses on the floor geometric figures, not noticing the orgy of robbery and murder taking place in the city. Suddenly, a Roman soldier with a drawn sword burst into him. Seeing the newcomer, Archimedes shielded his geometric drawings from him and said: "Do not spoil my circles for me." The warrior, intoxicated by the thirst for profit in response to the words of Archimedes, dealt him a mortal blow with a sword.

So the great luminary of science went out in 212 BC ancient world. Out of respect for brilliant thinker, Marcellus ordered to bury him with great honor. A cylinder with a ball inscribed in it was placed on the grave (this was the desire of Archimedes himself). But the grave was soon overgrown with shrubs. Only in 75 BC. e., the famous Cicero, being the ruler in Sicily, found among the abandoned graves a monument to Archimedes, depicting a cylinder. Cicero exclaims bitterly: “So one of the most glorious states that once gave birth to so many learned people, did not know where the tombstone of the sharpest mind of its citizens was.

After the fall of Greek culture, Archimedes was forgotten. Only the Arabs, who appreciated the mathematical genius of Archimedes, translated some of his writings into Arabic.

During the Renaissance, the creations of Archimedes were extracted from obscurity, published and admired by scientists.

Summing up the scientific and scientific-practical activities of Archimedes, it is clear that he is rightfully called the father of physics, physical experience, physical mechanics. Archimedes founded statics as a mathematical science, gave grounds to hydrostatics, solved many geometric problems, developed methods for calculating the volume of bodies and the center of gravity, and established a connection between geometry and mechanics.

The greatest mathematician of antiquity - Archimedes - was a patriot who passionately loved his homeland, its independence and culture.

A native and citizen of Syracuse. Educated in Alexandria, the greatest cultural center of the ancient world.

Archimedes owns a number of important mathematical discoveries. The highest achievements of the scientist in the field of physics are the scientific substantiation of the action of the lever and the discovery of the law according to which any body immersed in a liquid is subjected to an upward buoyancy force equal to the weight of the liquid displaced by it.

During the 2nd Punic War, Syracuse, who had defected to Carthage, was subjected to a Roman siege. Archimedes became famous for his active participation in the defense of the city. He created many war machines that delayed the capture of Syracuse for a long time. The possibility of the existence of some of these mechanisms is still in doubt among a number of scientists. So, Archimedes seemed to be able to focus sunlight using a giant mirror and direct the resulting beam at enemy ships.

During the capture of Syracuse, the scientist was killed by Roman soldiers.

Archimedes was an ancient Greek scientist, physicist, mathematician and engineer from Syracuse who lived from 287-212 BC. In addition to many discoveries made in the field of mathematics, especially in geometry, he also became the founder of mechanics, hydrostatics, and the author of a number of other significant inventions. He owns many significant discoveries in the field of mathematics and physics. For example, the ratio of the length and diameter of the circle, the scientific rationale for the action of the lever, and others.

Some treatises of Archimedes have survived to the present, which speak of the genius of the scientist. Among them are "On the ball and the cylinder", "On floating bodies", "On spirals", "On the equilibrium of plane figures" and others. Many discoveries were made in the field of astronomy. So, for example, Archimedes built the first planetarium, with the help of which it was possible to observe the movement of several planets, the rising of the Sun and the Moon, the phases of the eclipse of the Moon, etc. In one of his writings, he mentions the heliocentric system of the world. In memory of Archimedes, a crater and an asteroid are named after him.

Greek mechanic, physicist, mathematician, engineer. Born and spent most life in Syracuse. Studied in Alexandria. He was an adviser to King Hieron II of Sicily. According to legend, with the help of a system of mirrors reflecting the sun's rays, he burned the Roman fleet that laid siege to Alexandria. Considered the inventor of the catapult. He established the rule of the lever, in connection with which the saying is attributed to him: "Give me a fulcrum, and I will move the Earth."

Archimedes brilliantly combined the talents of an engineer-inventor and a theoretical scientist. In addition to military vehicles, he designed a planetarium and a propeller for lifting water, which is still in use. He wrote treatises: "On spirals", "On a ball and a cylinder", "On conoids and spheroids", "On levers", "On floating bodies", etc. He calculated the volume of the sphere and the value of the number "pi". Calculate the number of grains of sand in the volume of the globe.

One day King Hieron II asked Archimedes to determine if jewelers had mixed silver with gold when they made his crown. To do this, it was necessary to find out not only the weight, but also the volume of the product. Archimedes solved the difficult problem gracefully: he lowered the crown into the water and determined the volume of the displaced liquid. They say that the thought of this came to him when he was taking a bath. Joyful, he ran out into the street in what he was with a cry: "Eureka!" .

Many legends are associated with the name of Archimedes, the authenticity of which can hardly be confirmed. Of course, he could not burn enemy ships with the help of mirrors. But the story of the royal crown is quite plausible.

It is said that Hiero invited him to raise most of small force. The scientist invented a mechanism by which he pulled a heavily loaded trireme ashore. One of the historians of science suggested that Archimedes used his screw in connection with a system of gears. True, most likely this story invented in order to more vividly represent the engineering genius of Archimedes. Greek sailors, apparently, were able to pull even large ships ashore with the help of levers and blocks, but was Archimedes alone able to cope with such a task? Hardly.

Rumors about the planetarium he created are considered more reliable. In the center was the Earth, the Sun, the Moon and several planets revolved around it, set in motion by some mechanism. This building was enthusiastically mentioned by Cicero, without leaving detailed description. It is assumed that in the Middle Ages, similar ones were created on the model of the Archimedean planetarium.

Outstanding discoveries of Archimedes

The ancient Greek scientist Archimedes was an inventor, mathematician, designer, engineer, physicist, astronomer, and mechanic. He founded such a direction as mathematical physics. The researcher also developed methods for finding volumes, surfaces and areas of various bodies and figures, anticipating the integral calculus. He is the author of many inventions. The name of the scientist is associated with the emergence of the laws of the lever, the introduction of the term center of gravity and research in the field of hydrostatics. When the Romans attacked Syracuse, the organization engineering defense Archimedes dealt with the city.

At times high technology and scientific discoveries, we are accustomed to perceive achievements as something ordinary, forgetting that the foundations existing knowledge were laid down by ancient scientists. They were the pioneers. And Archimedes of Syracuse was generally a genius. After all, he confirmed the majority own ideas on practice. Our contemporaries successfully use them in their work, although they do not even know who their author was. The biography of Archimedes has come down to our days only from legends and memories. We invite you to familiarize yourself with it.

Childhood and studies

Archimedes, short biography which will be presented below, was born in the city of Syracuse in about 287 BC. e. His childhood fell on the period when King Pyrrhus waged wars with the Carthaginians and Romans, trying to create a new Greek state. Hieron, a relative of Archimedes, who later became the ruler of Syracuse, especially distinguished himself in this war. Phidias was Hieron's close associate. This allowed him to give Archimedes a good education. But the young man lacked theoretical knowledge, and he went to Alexandria, which was at that time a scientific center. Here, the Ptolemies, the rulers of Egypt, gathered the best Greek scientists and thinkers of that time. Also in Alexandria was the largest library in the world, where Archimedes studied mathematics and the works of Eudoxus, Democritus, etc. for a long time. In those years, the future researcher became friends with the astronomer Konon, the geographer and mathematician Eratosthenes. He then carried on frequent correspondence with them.

Sources: allbiograf.ru, citaty.su, www.sdamna5.ru, biopeoples.ru, fb.ru

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Archimedes is the greatest ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, astronomer and military engineer. He surprisingly combined the qualities of a theoretical scientist and a practitioner, successfully applying his knowledge and inventions to protect his native city.

Archimedes was born in Sicily, in the wealthy city-state of Syracuse, a former Greek colony. His father, the mathematician and astronomer Phidias, was friends with the Syracusan tyrant Hieron II and may even have been his relative. The craving for knowledge led Archimedes to Alexandria, the main science Center that time, where he met and became friends with many prominent scientists, such as Konon and Eratosthenes of Cyrene. After living in Alexandria for several years, Archimedes returned to Syracuse and remained there for the rest of his life.

One of the most famous statements attributed to Archimedes is: “If I had another Earth at my disposal, on which I could stand, I would move ours.” According to Plutarch's story, when Hieron II heard these words, he asked to translate such a bold idea into action and show some kind of heaviness moved by a small effort. In response, Archimedes ordered the royal three-masted cargo ship "Syracuse" to be filled with luggage, recently pulled ashore by a whole crowd of people with great difficulty, put a large team of sailors on it, and he sat at a distance and, without any tension, pulling the end of the rope passed through the composite block, He pulled the ship closer to him - so slowly and evenly, as if it was sailing on the sea.

In addition to the system of blocks, Archimedes invented a water-lifting screw, which was used in ancient times to irrigate fields and pump water from mines.

Another amazing invention of Archimedes is a small planetarium, during the movement of which one could observe the movement of the planets, as well as the phases and eclipses of the moon.

Fearing a Roman attack, Hiero II asked Archimedes to create a defensive system for Syracuse. On the advice of Archimedes, the city walls were rebuilt so that they could accommodate catapults and winches that lifted heavy stones and threw them over long distances, while the scientist himself began to develop new machines. The defense of Syracuse became a battle between the Romans and Archimedes.

One of the most terrible guns used by the inhabitants of Syracuse were the "beaks of Archimedes". They descended on any ship that came into range, grabbed it tightly and lifted it or turned it over. No one knows how these "beaks" work, perhaps they were a huge hook lowered with a winch.

Some ancient historians of the siege of Syracuse mention focusing mirrors, with which the besieged set fire to the sails and hulls of ships that approached the city wall within an arrow's flight distance. Archimedes could have come up with such "burning" mirrors, however there is no evidence that he actually did it.

The name of Archimedes is associated not only with many legends, but also with real discoveries. He determined the value of the number i with amazing accuracy, 2000 years before the advent of integral calculus described a method for calculating the volume and surface area of ​​curved bodies, came up with a way to express very big numbers, demonstrating it on the example of counting the number of grains of sand that exist in the universe.

In 212 BC. e. The Romans still captured Syracuse. Bursting into the house of Archimedes, one of the soldiers saw an old man, thoughtfully drawing geometric figures on the sand. The inventor asked not to interfere with his thinking about solving the problem, which made the warrior very angry, and he, drawing his sword, killed Archimedes.

With the help of various machines invented by Archimedes, Syracuse withstood the siege of Roman ships for about three years.