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| A portrait of Archimedes |
Archimedes (287 BC - 212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor and austronomer. Besides being considered as one of the leading scientists in the classical antiquity, he is also considered as the greatest mathematician of antiquity and one of the greatest of all time. But Archimedes is also widely known for running naked in in jubilation in the streets of Syracuse after a very important discovery.
A story is told about how Archimedes invented a method of determining the volume of an object with an irregular shape. According to Vitruvus who narrated the story, a votive crown had been made for King Hierro II, who had supplied the pure gold to be used. The king then asked Archimedes to employ his mathematical genius to determine whether some silver had been substituted by the dishonest goldsmith.
Archimedes had to solve the problem without damaging the crown, hence he could not melt it down into a regularly shaped body in order to calculate its density. This problem gave the revered mathematician a headache for quite some time. But while taking a bath one day , he noticed that the level of the water in the bath tub rose as he got in. Archimedes realised that he could use this effect to determine the volume of the crown.
Archimedes knew that water is incompressible, so the submerged crown would displace an amount of water equal to its own volume. So by dividing the mass of the crown by the volume of the water displaced, the density of the crown could be calculated. This density would, therefore, be lower than that of the gold if cheaper and less dense metals had been added. The great mathematician had finally solved the problem.
Archimedes then took to the streets naked, crying on top of his voice "Eureka!" (meaning "I have found it!"). He was so excited by his discovery that he had even forgotten to dress. Archimedes conducted his test successfully, proving that silver had indeed been mixed in producing the crown.
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