Who said "Eureka!"? The legendary discovery of Archimedes' principle

Many of us remember Archimedes from school. It was the one who said "Eureka!" After he entered the bath and noticed that the water level had risen. This led him to understand: the volume of displaced water should be equal to the volume of the submerged object.

The Golden Crown of Hiero

Once upon a time there lived a king named Hiero. The country he ran was rather small, but for this reason he wanted to wear the largest crown in the world. Her manufacture instructed the well-known skilled jeweler, giving him ten pounds of pure gold. The master undertook to do the work for 90 days. After this time, the jeweler brought the crown. It was a wonderful job, and everyone who saw her said that she was not equal in the whole world.

When King Hiero put the crown on his head, he even felt a little uncomfortable, so beautiful was his headdress. A lot of admiring, he decided to weigh it on his scales. The crown weighed 10 pounds, as it was ordered. The king was pleased, but nevertheless decided to show it to a very wise man, whose name was Archimedes. He turned in his hands a skillfully made hat and carefully examined it, then suggested that an unclean jeweler could steal some of the gold, and to preserve the mass of the product, add copper or silver to it.

Worried Hiero asked Archimedes to provide him with proof of fraud in case the master was dishonest. The scientist did not know how to do this, but he was not the person who recognized anything as impossible. He enthusiastically dealt with the solution of the most difficult problems, and when a question puzzled him, he did not stop until he found an answer to it. So, day after day, he thought about gold and tried to find a way with which you can check the deception without harming the crown.

Great discoveries happen by chance

One morning, Archimedes, thinking about the king's crown, was preparing for a bath. The large tub was full to the brim when he entered it, and some water leaked onto the stone floor. Something similar happened already many times, but for the first time the scientist seriously thought about it. "How much water will I squeeze out of the bath?" He asked himself. "Liquids came out exactly as much as I was. A person half my size will be displaced half as much. The same thing will happen if you put a crown in the tub. "

Who said "Eureka!"?

Gold is much heavier because of its specific density than silver. And ten pounds of pure gold will not be able to drive out the same amount of water as will squeeze out seven pounds of gold mixed with three pounds of silver. In silver, the sizes will be larger, hence, it will supersede water more than pure gold. Hooray, finally! Found! So that's who said "Eureka!" It was Archimedes. Forgetting everything in the world, he jumped out of the tub and, not stopping to dress himself, he ran through the streets to the royal palace, shouting: "Eureka! Eureka! Eureka! "In Greek, this means" I found it! I found! I found!"

The crown was tested. As a result, the guilt of the jeweler was proved, beyond any doubt. Whether he was punished or not, history is silent, it basically does not matter. It is important that the one who said "Eureka!" In the bath made a great discovery, which is more significant than the crown of Hiero.

The concept of "eureka"

The word itself is connected with heuristics, a branch of knowledge that refers to experience and intuition in solving problems, in the process of learning and committing discoveries. This exclamation is connected with the scientist Archimedes, who said "eureka" after he had a solution to the problem exciting him at the time. This story of the golden crown first appeared in writing in the book of Vitruvius, two centuries after the event.

Some scientists have questioned the accuracy of this story, saying that this method requires more accurate measurements that would be difficult to do at that time. Galileo Galilei dealt with this problem, suggesting a design for the hydrostatic balance that could be used to compare the weight of a dry object with the mass of the same object just immersed in water.

Limitless ingenuity

One of the oldest and well-known fairy-tales revolves around the legendary Archimedes. Who said "Eureka!"? And why is it, interestingly, many great discoveries are made during everyday and routine activities - in the bathroom, in a dream, under a tree? Archimedes continued to make an important contribution to the development of science. A well-known Greek mathematician, physicist and astronomer was born in 287 BC in Syracuse, a Greek colony in Sicily, and died in 212 BC. E. During the invasion of the Romans. His law is passed in school, and he himself is still considered one of the greatest scientists of all time.

Principle of Archimedes

This famous principle, accompanied by an interesting story, says: the weight of the same substance should occupy the same volume, regardless of shape. Who said "Eureka"? And what does it mean? It was a cheerful cry during an important discovery. In physics, Archimedes' principle is described as follows: when a body is immersed in a liquid, it is influenced by a buoyancy force equal to the weight of the displaced liquid.

Why do some objects float and others do not? This is due to such a phenomenon as buoyancy. For example, a ball of steel will drown, but steel of the same weight, but in the shape of a bowl will float, because the weight is distributed over a larger area, and the density of steel becomes less than the density of water. An example can be large ships that weigh several thousand tons and swim in the ocean.