Even the American Association for the Advancement of Science calls its breaking scientific news site EurekAlert. Edgar Allan Poe wrote a prose poem to science by that title and the prospectors of California's gold rush were so fond of the phrase that it crept into that state's motto. The mathematical conjectures of Henri Poincar¿, Einstein's theory of relativity, Newton getting dinged on the head with an apple and discovering gravity-all have been described as eureka moments. Several millennia later, the scientific world is replete with the exclamation, and many people have received inspiration in the shower. Realizing he has hit upon a solution, the young Greek math whiz leaps out of the bath and rushes home naked crying "Eureka! Eureka!" Or, translated: "I've found it! I've found it!" Because gold weighs more than silver, he reasons that a crown mixed with silver would have to be bulkier to reach the same weight as one composed only of gold therefore it would displace more water than its pure gold counterpart. Archimedes accepts the challenge and, during a subsequent trip to the public baths, realizes that the more his body sinks into the water, the more water is displaced-making the displaced water an exact measure of his volume. Said tyrant, name of Hiero, suspects his goldsmith of leaving out some measure of gold and replacing it with silver in a wreath dedicated to the gods. Let's begin with the story: the local tyrant contracts the ancient Greek polymath Archimedes to detect fraud in the manufacture of a golden crown.
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