Archimedes

Archimedes (around 287–212 BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, and engineer. He was born and spent most of his life in Syracuse, Sicily, where he died when the Romans attacked the city. The monument over his grave depicted a sphere inside a cylinder. The epitaph indicates that the volume and surface area of the sphere are two-thirds that of an enclosing cylinder, including its bases. Archimedes was especially proud of this mathematical discovery.

Georgians have known about Archimedes since ancient times. His works on geometry were well-known in the Highest School of Rhetoric of Colchis (3rd–4th century). In his work “Shemoklebuli Phisika” [Concise Physics], David Batonishvili describes an experiment by Archimedes where the “latter determined that some silver was added to the gold crown of the King of Syracuse. Ioane Batonishvili mentions Archimedes in "Kalmasoba.”

Literary work: Сочинения, М., 1962.

Literature: პარკაძე ვ., გამოჩენილი ფიზიკოსები, თბ., 1967; ცხაკაია დ., არქიმედე, თბ., 1939.