Suresh, Dakshayini
(2015)
Review of "the sand reckoner" by gillian bradshaw.
At Right Angles, 4 (3).
pp. 95-99.
Abstract
Archimedes (Syracuse, 287 BC-212 BC) is generally believed
to have been the greatest mathematician of antiquity, and
certainly one of the three greatest of all time (along with
Newton and Gauss). He is probably known best for his articulation of what has come to be known as the Archimedes principle, or rather for the entertaining scene that is said to have ensued upon its discovery. The story goes as follows. Archimedes was asked by King Hieron of Syracuse to determine whether a gold wreath he had commissioned and subsequently received was, in fact, silver. While turning this problem over in his mind, Archimedes chanced to go for a bath, and it struck him, as he bathed, that the volume of water displaced by his being in the bath was equal to the volume of his own body. When he made this discovery, he is said to have run straight out of the bath and his home naked, shouting ‘Eureka, eureka!’ (‘I have found it!’).
He used this rule of displacement to determine whether the
crown actually was pure and weighed as much as a pure gold
object of the same volume.
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