Talk:Archimedes

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Contents 1 Correcting the statement of Gauss 2 And the Greatest Scientist of All Time was? 3 Comments 4 Categorisation 5 Burning the Roman fleet. 6 Personal History 7 Image removed 8 Death of Archimedes 9 "X-rays reveal Archimedes' hidden writings" 10 Plato being a source for mythical ship 11 Cultural depictions of Archimedes 12 Details of his death 13 Plato speaks from the grave

[edit] Correcting the statement of Gauss

The present intro claims: "He is considered by some historians of mathematics to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, mathematicians in antiquity; Carl Friedrich Gauss considered him one of the two greatest ever (the other being Isaac Newton)." This is mostly nonsense, of course. What Carl Friedrich Gauss really said was: "There have been only three epoch-making mathematicians: Archimedes, Isaac Newton, and Ferdinand Eisenstein". Since Gauss himself frequently has been called the greatest mathematician ever, this could be qualified as a rather modest statement. I am going to correct this. Physicists 17:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] And the Greatest Scientist of All Time was?

Archimedes? Einstein? Newton? Galileo? Gauss? Someone else? The intros of the articles on Einstein and Newton mention that some consider them to be the "greatest". Others say Archimedes was the one, e. g, this Archimedes site [1] of Jürgen Schmidhuber. For symmetry reasons one could add a statement along these lines. Physicists 18:54, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

Draft. Some of the obvious things here include:

• The "Euureka" thing
• Archimedes' screw
• The principle of the lever
• The buoyancy principle
• Machines invented for the defense of Syracuse
• Books written
• Some info on π.
• Some books that he had written before his death

---

What's the earliest source telling the story that Archimedes discovered Archimedes' principle in a bath house and shouted "Eureka"? Was it Vitruvi? Perhalps we should repeat this story (as alledged, not as fact) a bit more in detail, both here and in the Eureka article. -- Adhemar

---

Someone wrote the following about the statement that the area of a parabola is equal to 4/3 the area of the triangle with the same base and height":

(This proposition must be understood as follows. The "base" may be taken to be a secant line of the parabola, not necessarily orthogonal to the axis of the parabola, but one must construe the word "base" in the formula to mean the component of its length in a direction orthogonal to the axis of the parabola, ignoring the component parallel to the axis; the "height" is the length of a segment parallel to the axis of the parabola, running from the midpoint of the base to the curve.)

Now, the way I remember this, Archimedes himself defined base as the length of the secant line, summit as the point of tangency of a line parallel to the base, and height as the distance from the base to the summit. This also seems simpler and more cogent that the explanation given in the page. While I gather a copy of the original text to double-check, I have moved the questionable content here.

-- Miguel

The "dubious" material that you moved to the talk page is indeed correct. It would be strange for Archimedes to define the base as the length of anything, rather than as the line segment itself. I will put the dubious material back, but phrased more simply and with an illustration. 131.183.73.153 01:35 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The reason I just reverted newly inserted references to "the Roman king" is that there was no Roman king in the time of Archimedes. Michael Hardy 21:31, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

... and besides, Archimedes was killed in the invasion, so no one could have been friendly with him. Michael Hardy 21:32, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Categorisation

I deleted categ:Mathematicians since the existing categ:Ancient mathematicians was/is already a subcategory of Mathematicians. No around the houses - a straight subcategory. Now we have categ:Mathematicians reinstated and so we have both categ:Mathematicians and categ:Ancient mathematicians - redundancy. Is there a general problem in recognising that an Ancient mathematician is automatically a Mathematician??

None at all. If individual mathematicians generally are to be listed in a category, then it would be absurd to exclude Archimedes.

Similar constructs occur in other science categories, without the general need for redundant categorisations. Ian Cairns 01:45, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Can I chip in and say that the nationality categorisation of mathematicians is problematic, in some cases, and should not really be pushed to the limits. I have left a note at Emil Artin, for example. For Besicovitch, there is a Category:Russian Jewish mathematicians that applies, and I think one could also say he was British. Multiple categories and redundancy is actually preferable to trying too hard to pigeonhole people. There is in fact little actual harm in having Category:Mathematicians applied to Pythagoras, for example, as well as Category:Ancient mathematicians. Some people using WP will not know Pythagoras was ancient (strange but true). Charles Matthews 09:52, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Footnote to that - it seems there is ongoing debate about the correct way to use categories for Russian or Soviet Jews. We should probably wait for consensus on that. Charles Matthews

Archimedes should also be categorized as a (theoretical) physicist. He founded statics and hydraulics and wrote on cosmology. — Miguel 12:25, 2004 Dec 18 (UTC)

[edit] Burning the Roman fleet.

In the article it is stated that during an episode of mythbusters, the theory of Archimedes using mirrors to burn roman ships is disproved. What is not mentioned however are the experiments of the Archimedes enthusiast Sakas. In the year of 1973 he organised 60 men to aim oblong shaped mirrors towards a replica of the roman ships of that period. http://www.editorialbitacora.com/armagedon/arquimedes/arquimedes.jpg Reports say the ship burst into flames within three minutes. I would definitely give this experiment more faith than the one performed on mythbusters. Perhaps if this experiment is sufficient proof for wikipedia then the possibility of the burning of the roman ships given in the article could be changed from highly unlikly to fairly possible? Many ancient historians reported on this event. It therefore seems likley that there must be some truth to the story. Real World 10:57, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Students at MIT had recently published a paper. They conducted their own experiment detailed at [2]. They had success in causing a fire. They had difficulty in getting the fire going until the sky cleared up and it was difficult to get the mirrors aimed correctly. Fire almost started immediately once the conditions were correct and the team worked in unison. They also found the waxes used did not affect the ignition. I would add this to the article, but i don't have the time right now to write article-quality text. --Klhuillier 02:06, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Personal History

This article needs some info added on his life, not just his work. Especially since the link from the Sophie Germain article refers to his "fate", yet there is no mention here of personal trials or mode of death.

Walt 20:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

a lot of stuff is supposedly what the public said to popularize him and sort of exaggerations according to other articles. that might need to be checked. like the naked and eureka part...

What is reliably known about his personal life (any marriage, children, political involvement, interests other than the physical sciences, etc)? A-giau 17:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

changed some info saying he was born in syracuse N.Y., he was born in the Kingdom of Syracuse, under the Monarchy of King Heron, whom may or may not have been his uncle. Plato has been quoted as saying they are "of close relation".

Archimedes actual relationship (as in, familial relationship) to the King or royal family is by no means certain. The current version of this article presents this as fact. According to the Palimpsest site, few details are known about his early life and family. I'd assume they have serious Archimedes scholars connected with their work, so it seems like a trustworthy source. -- Myrrhlin 02:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

According to Alexandre Dumas, in the Count of Monte Cristo, he was killed by a soldier of Marcellus whilst in deep concentration of some geometrical problem. Any ideas about this? --144.82.106.62 16:13, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Syracuse is modern day Sicily

Where does the name "Saracussia" come from? It's Syracusae in Latin and Συρακουσαι in Greek.

[edit] Image removed

I removed Image:Archimedes.jpg from the article because it is a lousy reproduction of a portrait dreamed up by 19th century painter Niccolò Barabino. If there is some consensus that a fictitious is better than none, I suggest to pick one from Pictures of Archimedes or Death of Archimedes Illustrations. Rl 15:19, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Death of Archimedes

I removed the claim that General Marcellus had the soldier who killed Archimedes executed. None of the classical accounts at [3] say this, although Plutarch writes that Marcellus regarded the soldier as a murderer. It is a feature of modern accounts that they sometimes say that the soldier was executed, but it is not an accurate reflection of the classical accounts of Archimedes' death.

Diodorus Siculus says that Marcellus probably ordered the soldier's death. (20:39, 7 November 2006 139.140.174.93)

Most of the accounts of Archimedes' death were written many years later, in some cases hundreds of years after the event. The exact circumstances will probably never be known, although many historians say that General Marcellus was angry when he learnt that a soldier had killed Archimedes.--Ianmacm 21:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, fix the quotation in Greek of his last words. Me can't be used with the imperative, so the verb either has to be in the subjunctive or the negative has to be ou. ( 9 November 2006 139.140.194.70).

I'm not expert enough on Greek to comment on this, but the phrase Μη μου τους κύκλους τάραττε (mi mou tous kiklous taratte) is spelt exactly as it is given at [4]. Any more comments on this would be welcome.--Ianmacm 07:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I can't find that quote in Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, or Plutarch. He says something entirely different according to Diodorus Siculus: "Αποστηθι, ω ανθρωπε, του διαγραμματος μου."

I'm not knowledgeable enough about classical literature to debate on this, but found similar information about the quote at [5]--Ianmacm 18:09, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know Modern Greek, but that looks like it might be a modern Greek approximation, considering the lack of accent marks on the monosyllabic words and the transliteration is definitely modern Greek based and not Ancient Greek based. Someone transliterating Ancient Greek would spell it "me mou tous kyklous taratte." Also, someone looking at the transliteration may have just assumed the last "e" in tratte to be an epsilon as opposed to an eta with iota-subscript. Regardless, I still can't find that quote attributed to him in anything.

[edit] "X-rays reveal Archimedes' hidden writings"

Quoting MSN.com: "X-rays reveal Archimedes' hidden writings".

The page: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14226275/?GT1=8404

[edit] Plato being a source for mythical ship

The page includes this claim:

Faced with war when unable to present the promised amount, Hiero II commissioned Archimedes to develop a large luxury/supply/war barge in order to serve his changing requirments of his navy. It is rumored that the Archimedes Screw was actually an invention of happenstance, as he needed a tool to remove bilge water. The ship, coined Saracussia, after its nation, may be mythical. There is no record on foundry art, nor any other period pieces depicting its creation. It is soley substaintiated by a description from Plato, who said "it was the grandest equation ever to sail."

Note that Plato died (347 BCE) before the birth of Archimedes which makes the statement above impossible.

[edit] Cultural depictions of Archimedes

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 15:56, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Details of his death

Archimedes' death is notable and should be documented in the article. You can find reliable sources for it here [6]. Best. --Deodar 05:10, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plato speaks from the grave

Plato died before Archimedes was born, so how is it the article has Plato commenting,"it was the grandest equation ever to sail."? Surely this should be deleted.