Archimedes: The Most Brilliant Mind in History
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- Опубліковано 11 вер 2024
- Around 260 BCE, King Heiron II of Syracuse in Sicily had a problem. He had commissioned the construction of the Syracusia which, at 4,064 tons, was one of the largest ships ever built. But, despite the heroic efforts of hundreds of men on the ends of ropes, he had been unable to launch what had become a beached monster. But then a savior stepped forward. With an ingenious arrangement of pulleys and levers, this man single-handedly launched the Syracusia without even breaking a sweat.
The man’s name was Archimedes. After launching the Syracusia, he is reported to have told King Herion …
Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth.
Events like this made Archimedes a legend in his own life and have established him as the greatest inventor of ancient times.
Like many of the ancient thinkers of the early Greek period, little is known about the life of Archimedes. A biography was written by a follower named Heracleides but this has not survived. Such basic facts including whether he was married or had children are unknown. Greek and Roman biographies that were produced in the centuries after Archimedes’s death focused more on his war machinery than on the personal details of his life.
Archimedes was born in 287 BCE in Syracuse in Sicily which, at the time, was a Greek colony. A frontier town, Syracuse was wedged between Rome and Carthage, which were at war with each other. As a young man, Archimedes traveled to Alexandria in Egypt to further his education. There he was exposed to the teachings of the philosopher Aristotle, the geometrist Euclid, and the astrologist Hipparchus. It is a near certainty that he rubbed shoulders with Eratosthenes, who measured the circumference of the world to within 4 percent of what we acknowledge today.
In addition to gaining an education in science and mathematics, Archimedes was reportedly employed as an engineer on large-scale irrigation projects on the Nile Delta while in Egypt. During that time, it is likely that he also invented the screw which was to bear his name for pumping water.
After an unknown number of years, Archimedes returned to Syracuse, where he was to stay for the rest of his life. It was a life filled with invention, study, and contemplation. He seems to have been the original absent-minded professor, so absorbed in solving higher thinking problems that he was totally oblivious to everyday concerns.
The most famous story that has come down through history that reflects Archimedes’ obsessive thought process and his total disregard for societal niceties regarded a time when King Hieron II had tasked a goldsmith with commissioning a gold wreath for him. When the job was completed and the wreath presented to the king, he suspected that the goldsmith had stolen some of the gold and replaced it with a cheaper metal. Herion contacted Archimedes for help.
Archimedes puzzled over a way to figure out if the goldsmith had ripped off the King day and night. One day, so the story goes, he was lying in the bath mulling the problem over. He noticed that the water level rose higher as he sunk deeper into the bath. Then he had his lightbulb moment. He jumped straight out of the bath and ran through the streets naked to the king’s palace, declaring at the top of his voice …
Eureka! Eureka!
meaning ‘I have it! I have it!’
Having apparently gotten dressed first, he then showed his idea to the king. He placed a piece of gold weighing the same as the wreath in a bowl of water and pointed to the rise in the water level. He then put the wreath in water and showed that the water level was higher than the first time. This proved, he asserted, that the wreath was a greater volume than the gold, even if it was the same weight, showing that the wreath was not pure gold. On the basis of this finding, the offending goldsmith was taken out and executed.
Credits:
Illustration - Jonathan Benbow bongwedesign.com
Script - Steve Theunissen
Voice Actor - James Fowler
Almost in F - Tranquillity by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommon...
Source: incompetech.com...
Artist: incompetech.com/
I love the stories about Archimedes. The soldier who killed him had no idea that he had just killed such a brilliant man. I wish we knew more about him. A truly brilliant man!
Couldn’t agree with you more!
what happened to the soldier? @@HistoryJunkie
About the soldier? He was probably lilled also
There are rumors, that some of the methods used by Archimedes were similar to calculus, which 'official' discovery is attributed to Newton and Leibniz almost 2000 years later. Archimedes was truly one of the greatest minds ever.
I like ur screen name. Very clever and cheeky
@@wchurchill419 Thanks. 😄 Cheeky
If Archimedes had a better numbering system which included zero, he certainly would have developed a system of calculus.
He was Da Vinci before Davinci for sure one of the most impactful minds of human history
Such an intriguing man 🤓, thanks for watching!
He was also like the Red Baron, both feared and respected by his enemies, and buried with honor by his foes...
He sounded very similar to Nikola Tesla for sure. That’s be a great dream team, had they met and got along. Edison was an A hole to Tesla lol 😂
@@wicketandfriendsparody8068isaac Newton esk levels to the game for sure 😅
Well narrated story of an intriguing subject. I found the lack of fancy video-switching and CGI most relaxing and helped to absorb the story line. Kudos for that! What I find most ingenious of Archimedes is the brain-power to understand the principle of the inclined plane and then imagine wrapping it round about a cylinder to create not only another-level of hydraulic lifter but the very object that holds our mechanical civilization together! Then further to rigorously elucidate the mathematics in such a clear fashion to be able to be understood today? Nearly unbelievable. Thanks for creating this and sharing!
Hey Marc, thank you for this feedback! Great points you bring up here too. He truly set the bar higher for civilization as we know it.
There wouldn't have been a Da Vinci or a Newton without Archimedes.
❤️
It's a. Saying
" Standing on the shoulders of Giants " I actually have long held that vendors who came before us the the earliest inventors who had the least amount of scientific knowledge or actually the greatest inventors because they had very little to work upon that was already groundwork laid nowadays people can do incredible things but they're standing on the shoulders of giants the same could be said about the sum total of art and music and other kinds of work as well though so it's intuitive to praise the collective and not just the individual it's quite conceivable that many of the Great geniuses we know had amuse or many muses or friends that were sort of like a sounding board or given over to the process of helping them to think about things or talk it out cuz all men rise and fall but it seems as though recently with the shows about reincarnation where kids can remember these details of everyone in this person's life before they died and then go and verify with certain people that knew the person that everything this kid knows is accurate I'm pretty well I'm pretty well believe in that reincarnation is a high probability and that if you don't learn your life you don't get to rise to be a great inventor or something of that higher aperture you are eternally relegated to stay like a worm or something that gets stepped on and then repeats unless you learn your lesson about compassion and not being so desirous of things take care of yourself of course nutrition and sustenance what-have-you
Many men die crushed under weight of their
Own hubris or pridefulness gratitude and humility imparts much wisdom 😊
He also met Indiana Jones....
Lol facts
INDEED 😅
Indiana Jones got me interested to know Archimedes
This is a Eureka moment !!…
Left out his most important achievements. The geometrical/mathematical proving of the value of PI as 3.141 using a method that foreshadowed calculus. Also left out is the fact that General Marcellus took from Archimedes shop , 2 machines that were able to show the positions of the planets. He kept one and donated 1 to the Temple of Venus in Rome. These machines are likely the origin of the mind bending Antikythera mechanism. A computing device so advanced no one believed it could be from that time. It was at least 1400 years ahead of it's time.
The way this ends with the screw diagram and his final words makes me wonder if Archimedes was on the verge of inventing an elevator. After all, a screw inside a circle(cylinder) functions as an elevator.
Love that idea, thanks for watching!❤️
Archimedes was one of the greatest mathematicians in history. He came close to inventing calculus 2000 years before it was discovered by Newton and Leibnitz in the 17th century.
Really he is more intelligent than Einstein. In those very old days around 250 BC when there was no much exposure to science and technology, the way he thaught was really great, if he had been there in 18 th or 19th century, he would have contributed a lot.
Siracruz ? Odd narriation. Good content, i saw once a piece on the evedence pointing to Archimedes being the one behind the Antikethera mechanism and wish i could find more.
It isn't necessarily only his intelligence but rather his persistence of study. And willingness to submerge his self into the quietude of focused concentration of replicated. Already. Widely held.
A consummate professional such as this. Is intellectually. Astute.
Moreso was his. Intrigue the. Redundancy carried out. So. Many times. Often times reveal a truth. That was yet unknow until the brain fully signs off on enlistment to the cause fully acquiescent and. Even intoxicated by incisive thinking
Man...Archimedes was a straight up G!
its also rumored the Archimedes laid the foundations of calculus 1800 years before newton, but a buhdist monk accidentally wrote over the important documents, leading to calculus being lost until newton and leibniz
It is not rumored, some notes have been found which alude to such
Weird inflections. AI?
Watched all of it 7:50
❤️
the mispronunciation of Syracuse is driving me nuts.
AI voice-over generated?
I Believe that Archimedes Was the inventor of the Anthikira Mechanism
hahaha
what is that ?
If there were witness to his running naked to the king sort of lends Credence to the. Authenticity of the golden wreath story
So we didn't need Alien astronauts to teach men how to think for themselves and solve scientific unknown problems??