Archimedes

Archimedes of Syracuse was an ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer and inventor whose surviving works became foundational to later mathematics and mechanics. Born around 287 BCE in Syracuse on Sicily, he developed rigorous methods for determining areas, volumes and centres of gravity and used the method of exhaustion in ways that anticipated later integral reasoning. His writings include On the Sphere and Cylinder, On Spirals, On Floating Bodies, The Sand Reckoner and studies of equilibrium and measurement.

Archimedes also became famous in antiquity for practical mechanics, including work on levers, pulleys and water-raising devices, although later stories sometimes embellish his inventions. During the Roman siege of Syracuse in the Second Punic War, ancient authors credited him with designing defensive machines that impeded the attackers. When Roman forces finally captured the city in 212 BCE, Archimedes was killed by a soldier despite orders that he should be spared. His mathematical writings continued to influence Islamic and European scholars for centuries.

In Ben Kane’s Hannibal: Clouds of War, in 213 BC, the Roman army besieges Syracuse, whose walls and machines have been strengthened by Archimedes. In Gillian Bradshaw’s The Sand-Reckoner, Archimedes is recalled from the intellectual freedom of Alexandria to Syracuse when his father becomes ill and war threatens the city.