Archimedes's understanding of his principle of mechanical advantage caused him to remark, It shows that if the distance a from the fulcrum to where the input force is applied (point A) is greater than the distance b from the fulcrum to where the output force is applied (point B), then the lever amplifies the input force. In his book On the Equilibrium of Planes, Archimedes proved the law of the lever using geometric reasoning. Whether or not the alleged incident took place, Archimedes did formulate the famous Archimedes principle which could be used to solve the problem he had been presented.Ī lever is a machine consisting of a rigid rod pivoted at a fixed hinge, or fulcrum. The test was conducted and it was ultimately proved that silver had indeed been mixed in the crown. Eureka has since become a common interjection to celebrate a discovery or invention. He then allegedly ran through the streets naked yelling, “Eureka” (“I have found !”). After being troubled for a while, Archimedes, supposedly in his bath, discovered that there was a direct correlation of the water overflowing from the tub with his immersed body. He gave Archimedes the task to find the purity of the crown without damaging it. The king had supplied pure gold to a goldsmith to make a crown for a temple but he was uncertain about the finished product doubting whether the goldsmith had mixed some silver in the crown. The most famous story related to Archimedes involves a challenge presented to him by King Hiero II. Also, Archimedes was familiar with the mathematics which had developed in Alexandria. This can be deduced from the fact that he personally knew other mathematicians who were working there like Conon of Samos and Eratosthenes of Cyrene, and he sent his results to Alexandria with personal messages. Though Archimedes was born, died and lived most of his life in Syracuse, it is highly likely that as a young man he studied in Alexandria with the successors of another great Greek mathematician Euclid. The city of Alexandria in Egypt was the intellectual and cultural centre of ancient Greece at the time of Archimedes. It is not known whether Archimedes married or had children

Historians believe that he at least had a friendship with the king of Syracuse even if he wasn’t related to him. According to Plutarch, the ancient Greek biographer and essayist, Archimedes was related to King Hiero II. We know this as Archimedes gives us this information in one of his works, The Sandreckoner. He was the son of Phidias, an astronomer. Little is known about the family of Archimedes. Syracuse was one of the major powers in ancient Greece and has been described as “the greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of them all”. The goal was to increase interest in math and science.ĪRCHIMEDES THE ANCIENT GREEK MATHEMATICIANĪrchimedes was born around 287 BC in the seaport city of Syracuse in Sicily. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution recognizing March 14, 2009, as National Pi Day. It has 'been used to help calculate the orbit of planets in the solar system and examine how ripples in rivers carry energy.' 'You can simply multiply tau with the radius of a circle to calculate its circumference intuitively,' the website explained. Pi has its uses outside of math class, though. Whether pi is useful for calculating the area of a circle has been questioned in more recent years noted that a growing number of mathematicians believe an alternative called tau is better. The last calculation done at the writing of this article - according to USA Today - was in August 2021 at the University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. According to, pi has currently been calculated out to 'more than trillion decimal places.' Pi, the number used to find the area and circumference of a circle, actually goes on infinitely.

and is considered the greatest mathematician of the ancient world, is credited with doing the first calculation of pi. The numeric representation of pi (3.14….) is equal to the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter.Īncient Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse, who lived in the third century B.C. Pi is the 16th letter in the Greek alphabet, which has 24 characters, just like that of the standard English one. It’s not hard to figure out why March 14 is celebrated annually as “ Pi Day” by math fans: The date resembles the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter - the number that begins with 3.14

Who was the first to calculate pi