Archimedes

Greek mathematician and physicist (c. 287 – c. 212 BC)

Fame88.2
Momentum0.0
Global rank#104

Source-basedFalling

Fame88.2
Momentum0.0
Global rank#104
Academics rank#13
Wikipedia119.5K

Lived -287–-212, aged 75

AcademicsAcademic

Wikipedia
191 languages
Cross-language footprint
Global rank
#104
Fame.am leaderboard
Era
-287–-212
Aged 75

Summary

Updated 2026-08-13

He derived the volume of a sphere, approximated pi, and laid groundwork for calculus — two millennia before Newton. His tomb bore the shapes he loved most: a sphere inside a cylinder.

Biography

About

Archimedes lived in Syracuse, Sicily, around 287–212 BC, and turned geometry into a weapon of precision. He applied infinitesimals and the method of exhaustion to prove theorems on areas and volumes — circle, sphere, ellipse, parabola, paraboloid, hyperboloid, spiral — and devised a system for expressing numbers too large for Greek notation. He was among the first to press mathematics into the physical world: the law of the lever, the principle of buoyancy, the concept of center of gravity. He built a screw pump, compound pulleys, war machines to defend his city, and possibly a planetarium pre…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Archimedes

Archimedes

saidundated

How many theorems in geometry which have seemed at first impracticable are in time successfully worked out!

— As translated by T. L. Heath, The Works of Archimedes (1897) unless otherwise indicated.

Archimedes

saidundated

Those who claim to discover everything but produce no proofs of the same may be confuted as having actually pretended to discover the impossible.

— As translated by T. L. Heath, The Works of Archimedes (1897) unless otherwise indicated.

Archimedes

saidundated

Equal weights at equal distances are in equilibrium and equal weights at unequal distances are not in equilibrium but incline towards the weight which is at the greater distance.

— Book 1, Postulate 1.

Archimedes

saidundated

If two equal weights have not the same centre of gravity, the centre of gravity of both taken together is at the middle point of the line joining their centres of gravity.

— Book 1, Proposition 4.

Archimedes

saidundated