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Born in Syracuse in 287 B.C. and educated in Alexandria, Archimedes
is known as the man who jumped up out of his bathtub one day and ran
naked through town shouting, "Eureka! Eureka!" In case your
knowledge of Greek is as limited as mine, "eureka" means "I have
found it."
Why did Archimedes do this? And what did he find?
While taking a bath, he had solved the dilemma of water
displacement, namely, the relationship between the weight and volume
of an object in water versus the weight and volume that was
displaced when he got out of the tub.
Other than the term "eureka," what did Archimedes invent?
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The hydraulic screw,
also known as the Archimedes screw, which was used in pumping
water from the Nile River
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The worm gear, which
is still used today
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A system of ropes and
pulleys that he used to move a ship while it was docked on land,
effectively creating the world's first winch
Archimedes is also credited with inventing the world's first
catapult, and legend has it that he showed how to use a mirror to
focus the sun's rays on an enemy ship, causing it to burn. Known
more as a mathematician than an inventor, he also calculated the
value of pi.
One of his contemporaries, Ctesibius (pronounced Ctesibius) lived
in Alexandria around the same time as Archimedes, but the two
geniuses probably never met.
Ctesibius invented the water clock, which was known back then as
the clepsydra. The sundial had already been invented but would work
only during daylight hours on sunny days. Ctesibius also created
three inventions in conjunction with each other:
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The valve, which led
him to create his next great invention...
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The suction pump,
which was used for fighting fires and led to his next great
invention...
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The pump that was
used as a source of wind for the first organ
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The most accomplished of the Greek inventors was Hero who, like
Ctesibius, was from Alexandria. Hero learned a lot from Ctesibius,
but since most of the records of their time have been destroyed,
it's not known if Hero lived during the same time as Ctesibius or if
he came after him and merely learned from his writings.
Like Italy's Leonardo da Vinci, Hero is regarded by history as a
man whose work was hundreds of years ahead of his time. Hero created
the following inventions:
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The world's first
steam engine, which was called an aeolipile. The principle
behind the aeolipile was that every action has an "equal and
opposite reaction," which we all learned in school. Sir Isaac
Newton discovered this 1,600 years later, and makers of jet
engines use this same principle 1,900 years later.
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A machine that would
dispense a fixed amount of holy water when a coin was put into
it. This was the world's first automatic vending machine.
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The screw-press,
which extracted olive oil from olives and juice from grapes.
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The odometer, which
measured the distance that taxis traveled. Hero did this by
making a pointer with gears that counted the number of
revolutions of the taxi cart's wheel. He called his invention
the hodometer. Ben Franklin would later invent an odometer to
measure the distance that mail carriers would travel for each
delivery.
Since no story about the ancient Greeks would be complete without
some sort of tragedy, we end this story with the account of
Archimedes' death in 212 B.C. When the Romans invaded Syracuse, the
Roman ruler ordered that Archimedes be left alone. One of the
soldiers didn't recognize him, though, and killed him with his
sword.
And that's the end of this Greek tragedy. It's time to go fix
myself a hero sandwich.
[Paul Niemann]
Paul Niemann may be reached at
niemann7@aol.com.
Copyright Paul Niemann 2006
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