Archimedis (portrait 1620)

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Archimedes was born in Syracuse Sicily (at that time a Greek colony).

He went to Egypt and went to study under a former pupil of Euclid.

He returned to his homeland Syracuse and spent the rest of his life.

He formulated the idea that the buoyant force on a submerged objects is equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces.

One time, he try to think of a way to determine whether the new crown of the king of Sicily was pure gold with out damaging it and he uses his discoveries to show that it was not real; the goldsmith who created the crown was then executed.

Archimedes worked out the theory of the lever and said “Give me a place to stand and I can move the world.

The king of Syracuse challenged him to move something really large, and Archimedes responded by using a system of pulleys, which are developments of the lever, and haul a laden ship overland all by himself.

He was given a credit for keeping the Roman fleet (Romans who attacked Syracuse in 215 B.C) at bay for 3 years using a variety of clever devices.

Eventually Syracuse was conquered by Rome, Archimedes was found by a Roman soldier bent over a mathematical problems scratched in the ground.When Archimedes did not stop immediately, the Roman soldier killed him.