Description
Book SynopsisIn this exclusive English edition of the elucidating and award-winning investigation of Archimedes' life, Mario Geymonat provides fresh insights into one of the greatest minds in the history of humankind. Archimedes (ca 287 BCE-ca 212 BCE) was a mathematician, physicist, scientist, and engineer. Born in Syracuse, Sicily, the Greek Archimedes was an inventor par excellence. He not only explored the displacement of water and sand, worked out the principle of levers, developed an approximation of pi, discovered ways to determine the areas and volumes of solids, and invented the monumental Archimedes' screw (a machine for raising water), Archimedes also developed machinery that his fellow Syracusans successfully employed to defend their native city against the Romans.
The Great Archimedes is already a highly acclaimed telling of the life and mind of one of antiquity's most important and innovative thinkers, and, now in translation, it is sure to be cherished by experts and novices alike across the English-speaking world. This wonderfully illustrated and multifarious book is enriched by numerous quotations and testimonies from ancient sources.
Trade Review"... a delightful and richly illustrated biography of the great mathematician Archimedes.... This publication makes Geymonat's interesting work available to the international public, acknowledging his praiseworthy objective of offering an excellent example of high-level scientific popularization." -- Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2012.01.14)
"Italian scholar Geymonat provides an interesting, brief account of the life and importance of Archimedes in this translated work. . . . Geymonat includes some unexpected gems. . . . Fun read overall! Recommended. Academic, general, and professional audiences. All levels." --Choice, August 2011
Table of Contents
- Foreword by Zhores Alferov
- Preface by Luciano Canfora
- Translator's Preface by R. Alden Smith
- 1. The Adventurous Life of a Remarkable Scientist
- 2. The Mysterious Greek Letter
- 3. ""Give Me a Lever Long Enough and I Will Move the World""
- 4. Eureka!
- 5. Archimedes' Magnum Opus: On the Sphere and the Cylinder
- 6. How Many Grains of Sand Does It Take to Fill the Universe?
- 7. Archimedes as Civil and Military Engineer
- 8. An Original and Persuasive Method
- 9. Archimedes and the Poets Catullus, Horace, and Virgil
- 10. The ""Myth"" of Archimedes, Yesterday and Today
