PIONEERS OF PROGRESS
MEN OF SCIENCE
Edited by S. CHAPMAN, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S.
ARCHIMEDES
BY
Sir THOMAS HEATH
K.C.B., K.C.V.O., F.R.S.; Sc.D., Camb.
Hon. D.Sc., Oxford
Δός μοι ποῦ στῶ, καὶ κινῶ τὴν γῆν
LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
1920
CONTENTS.
| CHAP. | PAGE | |
| I. | Archimedes | 1 |
| II. | Greek Geometry to Archimedes | 7 |
| III. | The Works of Archimedes | 24 |
| IV. | Geometry in Archimedes | 29 |
| V. | The Sandreckoner | 45 |
| VI. | Mechanics | 50 |
| VII. | Hydrostatics | 53 |
| Bibliography | 57 | |
| Chronology | 58 | |
CHAPTER I.
ARCHIMEDES.
If the ordinary person were asked to say off-hand whathe knew of Archimedes, he would probably, at the most,be able to quote one or other of the well-known storiesabout him: how, after discovering the solution of someproblem in the bath, he was so overjoyed that he rannaked to his house, shouting εὕρηκα, εὕρηκα (or, as wemight say, “I’ve got it, I’ve got it”); or how he said“Give me a place to stand on and I will move theearth”; or again how he was killed, at the capture ofSyracuse in the Second Punic War, by a Roman soldierwho resented being told to get away from a diagramdrawn on the ground which he was studying.
And it is to be feared that few who are not experts inthe history of mathematics have any acquaintance withthe details of the original discoveries in mathematicsof the greatest mathematician of antiquity, perhaps thegreatest mathematical genius that the world has everseen.
History and tradition know Archimedes almost exclusivelyas the inventor of a number of ingeniousmechanical appliances, things which naturally appealmore to the popular imagination than t