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Recommended: Essay about Archimedes
Archimedes (287BC-212BC) was truly one of the greatest mathematical minds of all time. The discoveries and inventions of Archimedes formed the basis of many of the fundamental concepts of modern physics and mathematics.
Born 287 BC Archimedes grew up in the thriving commercial hub of the port city of Syracuse, Sicily. His father, Phidias, was an astronomer and mathematician and it is thought his family enjoyed the life of aristocracy. Very little is known about his life, what is has been reported by the Roman writer and historian Plutarch. He studied for a short time in Alexandria, Egypt. Alexandria was a great place of learning, and at this time Euclid studied there and undoubtedly influenced Archimedes thinking. At the end of this study, Archimedes returned to Syracuse were he spent the rest of his life actively discovering and explaining important concepts. He is one of the few geniuses in history that enjoyed his own fame in his lifetime. Both his peers, his king, and even his enemies respected him for his work.
Most of Archimedes writings were lost in the burnings of the Library of Alexandria. What we know of Archimedes treatises is from three manuscripts. Two of them have been lost in history (one was last heard of in 1311, another in 1550) and the third is The Archimedes Palimpsest, now at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. (PW)
The Archimedes Palimpsest is very important and contains many ideas of Archimedes. During the medieval ages, the parchment on which his work was written was re-used as a prayer book. In order to reuse his parchment, the medieval monks palimpsested (in Greek “scraped off”) the text and then wrote over the remains. It is currently being refurnished at Rochester Institute of Techn...
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Wikipedia. Archimedes Spiral. Last updated.19 March 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes_spiral
Wikipedia. Archimedes. Last updated 1 April 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes
Archimedes Spiral. Last updated July 20, 2003. http://www.2dcurves.com/spiral/spiralaa.html)
NOVA. Infinite Secrets. Created September 2003. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/archimedes/pi.html
Math Refresher. Archimedes and the Area of a Circle. Created May 02, 2006. http://mathrefresher.blogspot.com/2006/05/archimedes-and-area-of-circle.html
Buzzle.com. Vishwas Purohit. Could Archimedes have lifted the Earth? Created 7/30/2004 http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/7-30-2004-57259.asp
J J O'Connor and E F Robertson. A History of Calculus. February 1996. http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/The_rise_of_calculus.html
Sophocles was one of the most influential writers of Ancient Greece. He was thought to be born around 496 B.C.E. in Colonus, near Athens Greece, and died at around 406 B.C.E. meaning that he only lived for about 90 years. He was born into a wealthy family, his father being Sophillius, and he was an amour manufacturer in the rural community
Young, C.. "Archimedes’s iron hand or claw – a new interpretation of an old mystery." Blackboard. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2011. .
Geometry, a cornerstone in modern civilization, also had its beginnings in Ancient Greece. Euclid, a mathematician, formed many geometric proofs and theories [Document 5]. He also came to one of the most significant discoveries of math, Pi. This number showed the ratio between the diameter and circumference of a circle.
Galileo Galilei was born in the City of Pisa on February 15, 1564. Sir Galileo is the oldest out of his seven siblings (Hightower 10-11). The father of his, is a musician and a wool trader ("Galileo Galilei" par 1-3). As a boy he enjoyed music and painting. He was very intelligent for this age and he constructed mechanical toys for his own merriment (Hightower 10-11). His studies started at a Jesuit Monastery about at age eleven. By the time of age seven-teen he told his father that he wanted to be a monk. Due to his father's wishes he went to medical school, taken out because he didn't want Galileo as a monk ("Galileo Galilei" par 1-3). While in medical school he did poorly and thought his classes were boring. Later he dropped out and studied science and math with many people (Lauber par 3-4). Then he studied much more objects in his lifetime and loved to learn (Hightower 10-14). Soon he achieved this college education but didn’t get a degree (“Galileo Galilei” par 1-3).
in 212 B.C. at the age of 75 in Syracuse. It is said that he was killed
Archimedes discovered many theorems in mechanics. His most famous one was named after him, ‘Archimedes’ Principle’, it gives the weight of a body immersed in a liquid. Archimedes, in this theorem stated that ‘any object, wholly or partially immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the
Socrates was born in Athens, the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and Phaenarete, a midwife. He received the regular elementary education in literature, music, and gymnastics. At first, Socrates followed the path of his father. He made a statue group of the three Graces and this stood at the entrance to the Acroplois until the 2nd century AD. He served as an infantryman in the Peloponnesian War with Sparta. He showed a lot of bravery at the battles of Potidaea in 432-430BC, Delium in 424BC and Amphipolis in 422BC.
Information about lifes of Sophocles and Euripides are very limited and hard to verify. However, many sources match about following information about their biographies. Sophocles was born at 497 or 496 BCE in Colonus Hippius, now a part of Athens. His father was a wealthy merchant and weapon producer and an important figure in their society. So, Sophocles had the opportunity of taking the traditional aristocratic education and studying art in his early age which was a pr...
He was also thought to be famous for his astronomical work also but it wasn’t that accurate. Apollonius’ work had great influence on the development of mathematics. Apollonius was known to be born in 262 BC, Perga, Pamphylia. Today that is known as Murtiana or Murtana now in Antalya, Turkey.
Due to a lack of primary sources from the time period, much of Plato's life has been constructed by scholars through his writings and the writings of contemporaries and classical historians. Traditional history estimates Plato's birth was around 428 B.C.E., but more modern scholars, tracing later events in his life, believe he was born between 424 and 423 B.C.E. Both of his parents came from the Greek aristocracy. Plato's father, Ariston, descended from the kings of Athens and Messenia. His mother, Perictione, is said to be related to the 6th century B.C.E. Greek statesman Solon. According to Alexander of Miletus quoted by Diogenes Laertius in his "Lives and Doctrines of Eminent Philosophers" his name was Aristocles, son of Ariston, of the deme Collytus.
Archimedes was born in syracuse in 187 BC. he was the son on the astronomer and mathematician Phidias. Not a lot is known of Archimedes early life or family. Some people think that archimedes was related to hiero II, the king of syracuse. In the third century BC Syracuse was a large hub for trade and communication. When in Syracuse as a kid Archimedes became curious and adept. Archimedes learned a lot from his teachers in Syracuse but soon he found there was more knowledge to be found in Egipt. So in 331 BC he traveled to Alexandria, a place of knowledge and scholarship.
Carl Friedrich Gauss is revered as a very important man in the world of mathematicians. The discoveries he completed while he was alive contributed to many areas of mathematics like geometry, statistics, number theory, statistics, and more. Gauss was an extremely brilliant mathematician and that is precisely why he is remembered all through today. Although Gauss left many contributions in each of the aforementioned fields, two of his discoveries in the fields of mathematics and astronomy seem to have had the most tremendous effect on modern day mathematics.
Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy on February 15th, 1564. His father, Vincenzo was a music teacher and musician. After his family moved to Florence, Galilei was sent to a monastery to be educated. He was so happy there that he decided to become a monk, but his father wanted him to be a medical doctor and brought him home to Florence. He was never really interested in medicine and studied mathematics at the University of Pisa. He was especially interested in famous mathematicians like Euclid (geometry) and Archimedes. In fact in 1586 he wrote his first book about one of Archimedes theories. He eventually became head of mathematics at the University of Pisa where he first wrote about a very important idea that he developed. It was about using experiments to test theories. He wrote about falling bodies in motion using inclined planes to test his theories.
The 17th Century saw Napier, Briggs and others greatly extend the power of mathematics as a calculator science with his discovery of logarithms. Cavalieri made progress towards the calculus with his infinitesimal methods and Descartes added the power of algebraic methods to geometry. Euclid, who lived around 300 BC in Alexandria, first stated his five postulates in his book The Elements that forms the base for all of his later Abu Abd-Allah ibn Musa al’Khwarizmi, was born abo...