Legend of Archimedes

Greek mathematician, physicist, and engineer Archimedes (287-212 BC) was born in Syracuse, a Greek colony on the largest island in the Mediterranean, Sicily.

Archimedes' name was already surrounded by legends during his lifetime. His amazing inventions, which produced a stunning effect on his contemporaries were the reason for these legends.

The most famous of them is the legend about the discovery of the force of Archimedes, the buoyant force. King Hieron instructed him to check the honesty of the master who made the golden crown. The mass of the crown completely coincided with the mass of the ingot of gold, which the master received to make the crown. But the king believed the master had added other metals to the gold. Archimedes has been invited to resolve this issue. There is a legend that while taking a bath, Archimedes came up with the idea of immersing objects with various volumes, but the same masses, in water. A gold ingot and an alloy of different metals, identical in mass to the crown, were immersed. The philosopher concluded that the master maker of the crown was dishonest by comparing the volumes of water displaced by different ingots (the crown displaced a larger volume than a gold bar).