The tomb of Archimedes carried a sculpture illustrating his favorite mathematical proof, consisting of a sphere and a cylinder of the same height and diameter. This quote is often given in Latin as "Noli turbare circulos meos," but there is no reliable evidence that Archimedes uttered these words and they do not appear in the account given by Plutarch. The last words attributed to Archimedes are "Do not disturb my circles" ( Greek: μή μου τούς κύκλους τάραττε), a reference to the circles in the mathematical drawing that he was supposedly studying when disturbed by the Roman soldier. A sphere and cylinder were placed on the tomb of Archimedes at his request. Ī sphere has 2/3 the volume and surface area of its circumscribing cylinder. General Marcellus was reportedly angered by the death of Archimedes, as he considered him a valuable scientific asset and had ordered that he not be harmed. According to this story, Archimedes was carrying mathematical instruments, and was killed because the soldier thought that they were valuable items. Plutarch also gives a lesser-known account of the death of Archimedes which suggests that he may have been killed while attempting to surrender to a Roman soldier. The soldier was enraged by this, and killed Archimedes with his sword. A Roman soldier commanded him to come and meet General Marcellus but he declined, saying that he had to finish working on the problem. According to the popular account given by Plutarch, Archimedes was contemplating a mathematical diagram when the city was captured. 212 BC during the Second Punic War, when Roman forces under General Marcus Claudius Marcellus captured the city of Syracuse after a two-year-long siege. He referred to Conon of Samos as his friend, while two of his works ( The Method of Mechanical Theorems and the Cattle Problem) have introductions addressed to Eratosthenes. During his youth Archimedes may have studied in Alexandria, Egypt, where Conon of Samos and Eratosthenes of Cyrene were contemporaries. It is unknown, for instance, whether he ever married or had children. A biography of Archimedes was written by his friend Heracleides but this work has been lost, leaving the details of his life obscure. Plutarch wrote in his Parallel Lives that Archimedes was related to King Hiero II, the ruler of Syracuse. In The Sand Reckoner, Archimedes gives his father's name as Phidias, an astronomer about whom nothing is known. The date of birth is based on a statement by the Byzantine Greek historian John Tzetzes that Archimedes lived for 75 years. 287 BC in the seaport city of Syracuse, Sicily, at that time a colony of Magna Graecia. It was sculpted by Gerhard Thieme and unveiled in 1972.Īrchimedes was born c. This bronze statue of Archimedes is at the Archenhold Observatory in Berlin.
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