Archimedes

Oil Painting of Archimedes (https://www.math.nyu.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/Pictu ())

Archimedes was born over 2,000 years ago and studied a variety of topics during his lifetime. Archimedes was born in 287 BC on the island of Sicily. Even though Sicily was an Italian island, Archimedes spoke Greek. During his lifetime, Archimedes had many areas of study--math, physics, engineering, and astronomy. Unfortunately, Archimedes was killed in 212 BC by a Roman soldier during the Siege of Syracuse at the age of 75.

Archimedes was a man of many accomplishments but that doesn't mean he didn't struggle or face hardships. Archimedes became the king's personal problem solver. Whatever problem the king had, Archimedes would attempt to find a solution. Sometimes Archimedes would struggle in finding a solution. He would then reject food or drink just to excel in his studies and discoveries. At the age of 75, Archimedes was drawing geometric figures in the sand when a Roman soldier walked straight through his drawings. When Archimedes saw this, he yelled in Greek at the soldier, "Don't disturb my circles!" Unfortunately, Archimedes was killed by this soldier after his outburst.

Archimedes was extremely smart for his time. He had many inventions, theories, and principles. Archimedes made the Archimedes Principle which uses displacement to calculate mass. Archimedes was also the one that came to the logical conclusion that the circumference divided by the diameter of a perfect circle was pi (3.1415926535897932384626433...). Lastly, Archimedes invented the Archimedes Screw, a tube that has a screw-like shaft to pump water easily.

Archimedes was a man with heroic virtues. Archimedes was studious. He would spend hours, if not days, studying math, science, physics and astronomy. This allowed him to excel in his studies. Archimedes was not only a genius but also creative. His inventions and principles were so brilliant--many are still being used today! Finally, Archimedes was brave. He stood up to a Roman soldier to stop him from walking on his work. Sadly, these words got Archimedes killed.

Archimedes is important to me because some of his studies, inventions, and principles have a base in modern day science, math, physics, engineering, and astronomy. I love all of these subjects so I consider Archimedes to be awesome! Archimedes is also important to the world. Without him, we wouldn't be as advanced as a civilization as we are today.