ARCHIMEDES 



Hand-painted Photogravure from the Painting by Niccolo Barabino 



The most important services of Archimedes were rendered to pure Geometry, 

 but his popular fame rests chiefly on his application of mathematical theory 

 to mechanics. He invented the water-screw and discovered the principle of the 

 lever. Conerning the latter the famous saying is attributed to him : " Give 

 me where 1 may stand and I will move the world." He first established the 

 truth that a body plunged in a fluid loses as much of its weight as is 

 equal to the weight of an equal volume of fluid. This is known as the 

 " Principle of Archimedes,'" and is one of the most important discoveries in the 

 science of Hydrostatics. It was by this law that he determined how much 

 alloy the goldsmith, whom King Hiero had commissioned to make a crown of 

 pure gold, had fraudulently mixed with the metal. The solution of the 

 problem suggested itself to Archimedes as he was entering the bath, and he 

 is reported to have been so overjoyed that he ran through the streets without 

 waiting to dress, exclaiming, "Eureka! Eureka!" (I have found it!). He was 

 killed at the age of seventy-five, during the capture of Syracuse by Marcellus 

 in 287 B.C. The original painting of Archimedes by Niccolo Barabino is in 

 the Orsini palace, Genoa. 



