Period of Archimedes

Archimedes spent some time in the city of Alexandria in Egypt. In those days, the Alexandria was the center of Greek science. There were a lot of disciples of Euclid in Alexandria. Euclid was very active around 300 BC on whose name there is a branch of mathematics called Euclidean Geometry. The exact years of his birth and death are not known. Euclid had published a famous book on geometry called The Element. With the disciples of Euclid, Archimedes studied geometry. Archimedes was able to determine the area, volume and center of many important shapes (Assis 2010). 

Archimedes is considered as the pioneer in statics and hydrostatics. Although he was a great mathematician, he is remembered more for applying the physics and mathematics to practical problems. The king of Sicily, Hiero II, was great admirer of Archimedes and based on his requirement, Archimedes invented many mechanical gadgets. He invented many weapons, for example catapult. Thus, he 

Today even the school children are familiar with Archimedes principle that states that a body immersed in a fluid experiences an upward buoyancy force, which is equal to the weight of the displaced fluid. The principle applies to both floating as well as submerged bodies and to all fluids, i.e., liquids and gases. A body is able to swim if the upward buoyancy force is equal to the weight of the body. 

Archimedes died in 212 BC. He was killed by a Roman soldier, when a long siege of Syracuse during the second Punic war (214—212 BC) was ended. It is said that the Roman commander, Marco Claudio Marcelo had ordered the soldiers not to kill Archimedes. When the Roman soldier approached Archimedes, he was solving a problem of mathematics and refused to accompany the Roman soldier. At this, the infuriated soldier killed him. Archimedes tomb was constmcted, where a sphere was drawn inside a cylinder as per the will of the Archimedes. In his work entitled On the Sphere and Cylinder , he computed the volumes and areas of the sphere as well as cylinder and considered it as one of his greatest achievements. 

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