Archimedes is believed to have been born in 287 B.C. in Syracuse, Sicily, and died in 212 B.C. His father was Phidias, who was an astronomer. We would know more about his life if his biography, written by his friend Hercleide, had not been lost (Archimedes of Syracuse. groups). The information we have about Archimedes' life comes from the writings of Plutarch, Livy, and others, as well as from the prefaces of Archimedes' works. We know from the writings of Plutarch that he received part of his education at Euclid's School in Alexandria, Egypt. There he was taught internal calculus, which included the study of volume. Archimedes figured out that the volume of a sphere is two-thirds the volume of a cylinder that circumscribes the sphere (Archimedes' Life. norfacad). While studying in Egypt, he also invented the Archimedes' screw. This is a pump that, when turned, carries water from a lower level to an upper level (Archimedes of Syracuse. math). This pump is still used in many parts of the world and probably similar in operation to hydroelectric turbines that generate electricity today.
             Along with being a famous physicist, Archimedes is considered to be one of the three greatest mathematicians of all time, along with Newton and Gauss (10.2. Archimedes shu). He is considered to be the greatest mathematician of antiquity and made his greatest contributions in geometry (Archimedes of Syracuse. math).
             Archimedes literally invented the study of hydrostatics. In one particular result he was able to compute the maximum angle that a (paraboloid) ship could list
             before it capsized – and he did it without calculus! (Archimedes of Syracuse. math).
             A lot of Archimedes' fame came from working on projects for his good friend King Hieron. Archimedes loved to figure out the King's problems for him. One of the most famous problems Archimedes was to work on was to figure out if the ...