Title Image - Quotes by Author Archimedes

Welcome to our collection of quotes (with shareable picture quotes) by Archimedes. We hope you enjoy pondering them and that you will share them widely.

Wikipedia Summary for Archimedes

Archimedes of Syracuse (Ancient Greek: Ἀρχιμήδης; Doric Greek: [ar.kʰi.mɛː.dɛ̂ːs]; c. 287 – c. 212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Considered to be the greatest mathematician of ancient history, and one of the greatest of all time, Archimedes anticipated modern calculus and analysis by applying the concept of the infinitely small and the method of exhaustion to derive and rigorously prove a range of geometrical theorems, including: the area of a circle; the surface area and volume of a sphere; area of an ellipse; the area under a parabola; the volume of a segment of a paraboloid of revolution; the volume of a segment of a hyperboloid of revolution; and the area of a spiral.

His other mathematical achievements include deriving an accurate approximation of pi; defining and investigating the spiral that now bears his name; and creating a system using exponentiation for expressing very large numbers. He was also one of the first to apply mathematics to physical phenomena, founding hydrostatics and statics, including an explanation of the principle of the lever. He is credited with designing innovative machines, such as his screw pump, compound pulleys, and defensive war machines to protect his native Syracuse from invasion.

Archimedes died during the siege of Syracuse, where he was killed by a Roman soldier despite orders that he should not be harmed. Cicero describes visiting the tomb of Archimedes, which was surmounted by a sphere and a cylinder, which Archimedes had requested be placed on his tomb to represent his mathematical discoveries.

Unlike his inventions, the mathematical writings of Archimedes were little known in antiquity. Mathematicians from Alexandria read and quoted him, but the first comprehensive compilation was not made until c. 530 AD by Isidore of Miletus in Byzantine Constantinople, while commentaries on the works of Archimedes written by Eutocius in the 6th century AD opened them to wider readership for the first time. The relatively few copies of Archimedes' written work that survived through the Middle Ages were an influential source of ideas for scientists during the Renaissance and again in the 17th century, while the discovery in 1906 of previously unknown works by Archimedes in the Archimedes Palimpsest has provided new insights into how he obtained mathematical results.

Rise above oneself and grasp the world.

--Archimedes

Those who claim to discover everything but produce no proofs of the same may be confuted as having actually pretended to discover the impossible.

--Archimedes

Man has always learned from the past. After all, you can't learn history in reverse!

--Archimedes

Rise above oneself and grasp the world.

--Archimedes

The centre of gravity of any cylinder is the point of bisection of the axis.

--Archimedes

The perimeter of the earth is about 3,000,000 stadia and not greater.

--Archimedes

The centre of gravity of any parallelogram lies on the straight line joining the middle points of opposite sides.

--Archimedes

It follows at once from the last proposition that the centre of gravity of any triangle is at the intersection of the lines drawn from any two angles to the middle points of the opposite
sides respectively.

--Archimedes

How many theorems in geometry which have seemed at first impracticable are in time successfully worked out!

--Archimedes

Give me but a firm spot on which to stand, and I shall move the earth.

--Archimedes

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.

--Archimedes

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