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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with

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Speaker 1: how Stuff Works in love all things tech, and it's

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Speaker 1: time for another classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode

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Speaker 1: originally published way back in June two thousand and eleven.

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Speaker 1: We had only just invented technology. That's a lie, and

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Speaker 1: you'll know why that's a lie because in this episode

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Speaker 1: we talked about ancient technology. This episode is titled Eureka Archimedes,

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Speaker 1: in which I am my co host Chris Palette. At

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Speaker 1: the time, we we look into Archimedes and the supposed

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Speaker 1: inventions he created during his lifetime, some of which we

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Speaker 1: think are probably apocryphal. But it was a fun at

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Speaker 1: sisode where we really researched historical tech. I hope you

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Speaker 1: enjoy it. In the past, we have talked about many

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Speaker 1: fascinating people in tech um, most of whom lived in

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Speaker 1: the twenty and twenty one centuries. Today, we're going back

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Speaker 1: a bit farther, Yeah, to the point of of two

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Speaker 1: eight seven b C would be the the year that

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Speaker 1: this fellow was born, and we are talking about Archimedes. Yes,

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Speaker 1: the developer of the t R S A D. I'm kidding,

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Speaker 1: he's definitely a precursor to that. Um. Yes, we're not

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Speaker 1: talking Texas instruments, we're talking Greek ones. So Archimedes was

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Speaker 1: a mathematician, he was an astronomer, he was an engineer

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Speaker 1: and inventor. Very clever fellow, I guess that would probably

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Speaker 1: an understatement. Oh, yes, one of the fathers of calculus,

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Speaker 1: not not the calculus that we used today, but precursor again. Um, well,

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Speaker 1: we've talked about it a lot in in the past

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Speaker 1: two We've talked about the principle simultaneous discovery, where people

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Speaker 1: more than one person comes up with the same idea.

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Speaker 1: We've also talked about how people to have discoveries build

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Speaker 1: on other people's work. And Archimedes was definitely a founder

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Speaker 1: of many, many of our technologies. Yeah, you would call

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Speaker 1: him the father of integral calculus. Not not the same

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Speaker 1: thing as neutronian calculus um, which is of course much

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Speaker 1: later on. So and and Chris has already made mention

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Speaker 1: of one of the famous quotes attributed to Archimedes, which is,

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Speaker 1: give me a place to stand, and I will move

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Speaker 1: the earth and it sounds like something that a megalomaniacal

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Speaker 1: supervillain would say. But in this case, Archimedes is talking

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Speaker 1: about the discoveries he made and what we would call

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Speaker 1: basic mechanical structures now, things like pulleys and levers. In

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Speaker 1: that case, we're talking specifically about leavers. But our Comedes

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Speaker 1: really was interested in the relationship of pulleys leavers and

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Speaker 1: how they could be used to do work. And um,

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Speaker 1: he spent quite a bit of time perfecting that, so

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Speaker 1: much so that there are certain inventions that are are

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Speaker 1: associated with him that are related in some form to

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Speaker 1: simple machines, although not all of those inventions are necessarily

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Speaker 1: straight from uh, from archimedes brain. But we're gonna talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about some of the things that he

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Speaker 1: did do, and then some of the things that are

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Speaker 1: attributed to him that perhaps he did not do or

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Speaker 1: perhaps just didn't work. There's one in particular that's pretty

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Speaker 1: famous due to a MythBusters episode that we'll get to.

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Speaker 1: That's one of my favorites. Actually. Now Archimedes. Archimedes his

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Speaker 1: dad was an astronomer, so he was growing up and

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Speaker 1: he was exposed to the sciences. Um, he was probably

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Speaker 1: taught by followers of Euclid, and uh he was. You know,

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Speaker 1: what we know of him is mostly from stuff that

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Speaker 1: was written well after his death, and because of that

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Speaker 1: we can't be completely certain about the details of his life.

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Speaker 1: In fact, there's still confusion about exactly when he died.

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Speaker 1: It was sometime around two hundred twelve or two hundred

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Speaker 1: eleven b C. And I was born in two eight

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Speaker 1: seven b C. Remember we count backwards, right, probably confuse

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Speaker 1: the heck out of them at the time. What are

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Speaker 1: we coming down to? So yeah, so, so he died

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Speaker 1: around two twelve to eleven b C. And you might ask, well,

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Speaker 1: how did Archimedes die? How did Archimedes die violently? Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: it was during a sacking of Syracuse, which is that

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Speaker 1: was archimedes home. He lived in Syracuse, in Sicily, and

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Speaker 1: at the time it was an independent Greek city state

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Speaker 1: before it was you know, physically uprooted and moved to

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Speaker 1: New York. Yes, no, yes, not how exactly what happened? No, no, now,

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Speaker 1: the original original Syracuse. So, so in the Romans were

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Speaker 1: in a war with It was a Roman Carthin Carthaginian war.

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Speaker 1: Says Carthage and Rome are in a war with each

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Speaker 1: other in Syracuse got pulled into the middle of that,

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Speaker 1: despite attempts to kind of sort of not do that,

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Speaker 1: but various rulers of Syracuse ended up siding with either

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Speaker 1: Rome or Carthage during the the the whole conflict, and

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Speaker 1: at one point in the war, Rome besieged Syracuse, and

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Speaker 1: during the attack a Roman soldier came upon Archimedes, and

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Speaker 1: although there were specific orders to spare the life of Archimedes,

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Speaker 1: the Roman soldier killed him, apparently not knowing the identity

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Speaker 1: of the man he put to the sword. So our

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Speaker 1: Comedes was he was valued by both sides. He was

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Speaker 1: recognized as a genius, and neither side wanted this genius

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Speaker 1: to be destroyed. But as an unfortunate side effect of war,

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Speaker 1: sometimes accidents happened. Now why was why did people consider

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Speaker 1: him a genius? Well, one was that he was making

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Speaker 1: incredible contributions to mathematics. He had found really interesting relationships

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Speaker 1: between things like the volume of the sphere and the

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Speaker 1: surface of cylinders, and found out interesting ways to to

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Speaker 1: kind of explain those relationships, including a very close approximation

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Speaker 1: of pie. Um pie. We've lost him, haven't had breakfast yet?

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Speaker 1: Um so he was definitely valued for his intelligence, but

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Speaker 1: beyond that, he also was this great inventor. In fact,

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Speaker 1: during the war, during the siege on Syracuse, he came

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Speaker 1: up with an invention known as the iron hand that

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Speaker 1: played a big part in the defense of the city.

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Speaker 1: Did you come across the iron hand? Actually I did

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Speaker 1: not come across the iron hand. This is different from

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Speaker 1: the iron fist. Yeah, I guess the one is used

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Speaker 1: for defense. The other one you rule with that. It

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Speaker 1: was also sometimes called archimedes claw. Um, it's a it's

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Speaker 1: a brilliant, brilliant defense mechanism for that time. It would

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Speaker 1: not work today. But here's what here's what it was.

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Speaker 1: So Syracuse was um, right up against the like essentially

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Speaker 1: there was you know, a slight cliff and then you

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Speaker 1: had a city wall that that was I think twenty

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Speaker 1: seven kilometers long back when it stood. It doesn't stand anymore, um,

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Speaker 1: but it you know, then you it was essentially right

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Speaker 1: up against the ocean. So one of the possible avenues

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Speaker 1: of attack was an attack by sea, which is what

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Speaker 1: one of the venues that Rome was interested in. So, uh,

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Speaker 1: the leader of Syricuse came to Archimedes and said, I

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Speaker 1: need a way to protect us while from these attacks

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Speaker 1: from the from the ocean. So what our communes came

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Speaker 1: up with was an enormous lever that you would mount

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Speaker 1: on the sides of the city walls. Are actually on

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Speaker 1: the top of the city walls. So you have this

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Speaker 1: huge lever that that extends out over the ocean. From

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Speaker 1: the end of the lever, you have a rope that

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Speaker 1: drops down and on the end of the rope is

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Speaker 1: a grappling hook. Now on the other end, the short

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Speaker 1: end of the lever, you put huge lead weights and

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Speaker 1: you first put them near the pivot points so that

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Speaker 1: the weight of the long part of the lever keeps

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Speaker 1: it level. All right. What you try to do is

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Speaker 1: you try and catch the bow of a ship, a

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Speaker 1: Roman ship with that grappling hook. Once you do, you

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Speaker 1: slide those weights back from the the the fulcrum there

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Speaker 1: to the very end of the short arm of the lever.

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Speaker 1: Now that weight is enough to push that end of

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Speaker 1: the lever down, meaning the long arm of the lever

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Speaker 1: goes up. That's the arm that, by the way, is

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Speaker 1: attached to the rope and the grappling hook. So you

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Speaker 1: literally pull the end of the Roman ship out of

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Speaker 1: the water. You then use the lever to shake the

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Speaker 1: Roman ship and eventually the grappling hook breaks off of it,

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Speaker 1: making the Roman ship fall again, either smashing against the

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Speaker 1: water or the rocks on the base of the cliffs.

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Speaker 1: That's brilliant, but extremely complicated. It seems like trying to

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Speaker 1: build the lever. Yeah, and however, was incredibly effective. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so effective that Rome abandoned their sea based attacks. They

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Speaker 1: instead of instead of attacking Syracuse by see, what they

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Speaker 1: did was they set up a blockade further out in

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Speaker 1: the ocean where they're not going to get hit by

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Speaker 1: a grappling hook from the shore, and then they ended

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Speaker 1: up attacking by land and eventually sacked Syracuse. So while

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Speaker 1: the victory was a a a good one, I mean

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Speaker 1: it was, it was definitely a lauded victory, but it

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Speaker 1: was short lived because all they did was they changed

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Speaker 1: tactics and unfortunately the the iron hand was not as

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Speaker 1: good at defending against land based attacks were good at all. Now,

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Speaker 1: there were other theoretical weapons that some people say actually

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Speaker 1: were built and used against the Romans during this very

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Speaker 1: same siege. And uh, one of the one I was

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Speaker 1: talking about with MythBusters was the the Archimedes death A.

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Speaker 1: Oh right, you know what I'm talking about here, right right,

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Speaker 1: How he theoretically was able to uh set fire to

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Speaker 1: the sales, Yeah, to the sales or actual ships, yeah,

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Speaker 1: from a distance. The idea being that he designed a

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Speaker 1: device that would reflect and concentrate light from the sun

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Speaker 1: and direct it at ships, and it would be so

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Speaker 1: intense that it would be hot enough to to set

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Speaker 1: fire to at least the sales of the ship, if

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Speaker 1: not the actual ships themselves. Uh and and and at

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Speaker 1: least some of the reports it was uh said that

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Speaker 1: he used shields and he just polished the surface of

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Speaker 1: the metal shields and array them in a in a

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Speaker 1: shape that would direct the light. It's kind of very

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Speaker 1: concentrated way. So you have all these different shields that

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Speaker 1: are tilted just so so that the light that they

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Speaker 1: reflect all hits the same spot. Sort of like the

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Speaker 1: devices that you used to cook a hot dog or

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Speaker 1: something like that that you used to use a camp.

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Speaker 1: You know, you have your your mirror and you stick

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Speaker 1: your food there, and you know, the sunlight reflects off

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Speaker 1: the inside of the mirror, and except much much larger

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Speaker 1: and stuff I used fire yeah, anyway, now that that

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Speaker 1: actually isn't so far fetched in a way. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he really was interested in catoptrics, which I didn't know

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Speaker 1: was a word, so I'm trying to use it and

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Speaker 1: build it into my vocabulary that I don't know what

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Speaker 1: it is, so please tell me. Yes, Well, I actually

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Speaker 1: got that word from Britannica's profile on Archimedes um. It

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Speaker 1: is the the part of optics that works with the

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Speaker 1: reflection of light from mirrors from different types. They could

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Speaker 1: be flat or curved mirrors, but catoptrics is is that,

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Speaker 1: uh study, and he was particularly interested in it, so

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Speaker 1: it wasn't like it was out of character for him

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Speaker 1: to be interested in something like that. But apparently it

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Speaker 1: doesn't so much work well. On the MythBusters episode that

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Speaker 1: they made UM, the MythBusters used they they actually tried

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Speaker 1: to build one themselves and it didn't really work so well.

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Speaker 1: And then they set out a challenge to various groups

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Speaker 1: to try and build UM a working Archimedes death ray,

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Speaker 1: and they found some success, something where it was warm

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Speaker 1: enough where it could in theory set fire to maybe

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Speaker 1: the sales, but it would it took time, and you know,

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Speaker 1: you had to worry about it being the right time

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Speaker 1: of day for you to be able to do this,

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Speaker 1: And it would really depend on the ship being very

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Speaker 1: uh well complicit in the burning process, in the sense of,

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Speaker 1: if the ship's moving around a lot, then you have

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Speaker 1: to be able to move the ray so that it

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Speaker 1: stays on the same general area in order to keep

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Speaker 1: increasing that temperature until it reaches the burning point. And

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Speaker 1: if the ship's moving, then you may not be able

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Speaker 1: to train the ray on that on that uh moving

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Speaker 1: target fast enough to be able to um to actually

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Speaker 1: get the temperature hot enough to for stuff to burn.

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Speaker 1: So it's even if it were an actual weapon, it

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Speaker 1: was necessarily an effective one, not like the not like

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Speaker 1: the the lever that he had designed, which was demonstrably effective,

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Speaker 1: effective enough to make the Romans change their tactics. Hey guys,

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Speaker 1: it's modern day, Jonathan, and I'm not talking about modern

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Speaker 1: day two thousand eleven Jonathan. This is two thousand eighteen, Jonathan.

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Speaker 1: I'm so much wiser and thinner than two thousand eleven Jonathan.

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Speaker 1: But I'm here to say I hope you're enjoying the episode,

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Speaker 1: but it's time for us to take a quick break

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Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. Now, there are also other interesting

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Speaker 1: inventions that we attribute to our committees, one of which

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Speaker 1: is that he probably did make were planetariums. Oh yes,

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Speaker 1: they were also called spheres at the time the Archimedes Spears,

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Speaker 1: and it was if you don't know what a planetarium is,

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Speaker 1: a planetarium is essentially a geo sent trick model of

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Speaker 1: what the uh, the stars and position of planets in

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Speaker 1: the Sun and the moon, what what it looks like

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Speaker 1: from the perspective of Earth. You know, it's a it's

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Speaker 1: an Earth based view of the the galaxies around us,

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Speaker 1: the universe essentially. And so Archimedes had apparently built one

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Speaker 1: of these, possibly that used interesting little gears to mimic

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Speaker 1: the motion of the planets and stars and constellations to

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Speaker 1: keep everything aligned properly and making the move the way

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Speaker 1: they actually do through the sky. And uh he built

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Speaker 1: a couple of these apparently, although both of them have

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Speaker 1: been lost. There were other devices that have been recovered

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Speaker 1: since then from shipwrecks and things like that that may

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Speaker 1: either be an actual example of the spheres that Archimedes

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Speaker 1: himself built, or maybe built on the same principles that

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Speaker 1: Archimedes used when building his but that's that's one of

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Speaker 1: those things where we have we've heard the record of

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Speaker 1: him building these things, and he certainly had the intelligence

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Speaker 1: necessary to be able to design such a thing, we

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Speaker 1: just don't have the physical proof of it. Um. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: There was a treatise that he apparently wrote called the

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Speaker 1: sand Reckoner that had to do with um astronomy and

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Speaker 1: his astronomical thought. He actually had had been able to

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Speaker 1: uh sort of using his tools of his time, he

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Speaker 1: was able to get an eye a reasonable idea of

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Speaker 1: the diameter of the sun, um, you know, through his

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Speaker 1: uh using instruments to observe this. And this is of

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Speaker 1: course long before people that we sort of associate with

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Speaker 1: um astronomy, you know, modern astronomy, people like Galileo UM.

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Speaker 1: You know. There he was really sort of in a

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Speaker 1: groundbreaking category in this regard. But all there were others

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Speaker 1: who who worked with these princes bools to um. You know,

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Speaker 1: his work went into uh several others as well, but UM,

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Speaker 1: I think it's sort of disappeared for a while. UM.

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Speaker 1: And they were the kinds of things too that stood out,

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Speaker 1: people like Plutarch, the uh um you know, who wrote

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Speaker 1: quite a bit about the famous people of his time

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Speaker 1: categorized Archimedes work. Um, and he's you know, these things

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Speaker 1: were well enough documented that he was able to to

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Speaker 1: pull this out. So yeah, I'd like to talk about

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Speaker 1: another real quick legendary Archimedes moment. Okay, um, this would

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Speaker 1: be another great quote to do with the bathtub. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it does. It has to do with the bathtub. So

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Speaker 1: this is again a possibly apocryphal story. In other words,

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Speaker 1: this this may not be true. In fact, I think

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Speaker 1: a lot of historians put this in the the realm

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Speaker 1: of legend for for many reasons, one of which is

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Speaker 1: that the solution Archimedes came up with was actually not

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Speaker 1: as not as difficult to to get to as you

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Speaker 1: would imagine. So in other words, it seems like it's

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Speaker 1: too easy an answer for Archimedes is almost the argument here.

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Speaker 1: But the the situation was that you had the King

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Speaker 1: of Syracuse who had commissioned a a golden crown, and

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Speaker 1: this golden crown was made, but the king was suspicious

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Speaker 1: of the golden crown. He thought that perhaps the person

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Speaker 1: who made it actually used silver to make the crown

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Speaker 1: and then coded it with gold in order to h

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Speaker 1: to cheat the king out of money. Essentially because silver

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Speaker 1: was less precious than gold, and therefore by using gold

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Speaker 1: silver in the crown, he could make it for for

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Speaker 1: less money than it would cost him to to gather

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Speaker 1: all the materials and thus have a higher profit. So,

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Speaker 1: how do you figure out if it weighs the right

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Speaker 1: amount for a crown of that general size? Um, how

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Speaker 1: do you figure out whether or not silver was used? Well,

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Speaker 1: silver doesn't weigh as much as gold does, so, in

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Speaker 1: other in other words, in order to make a silver

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Speaker 1: crown that would weigh the same amount as a gold crown,

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Speaker 1: you would have to add more silver. Right, So, if

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Speaker 1: you had a cube of silver and a cube of

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Speaker 1: gold that were the exact same size, the gold would

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Speaker 1: weigh more. Yes, So in order to make the cube's

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Speaker 1: weigh the same, you would have to have a bigger

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Speaker 1: cube of silver. Right. So that was that was what

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Speaker 1: Archimedes came up with. He came up with this idea

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Speaker 1: of well, if I use the amount of gold that

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Speaker 1: it takes to create the weight of this crown, and

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Speaker 1: just let's say this crown weighs let's just say ten pounds, Okay,

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Speaker 1: So for the our for argument's sake, this crown weighed

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Speaker 1: ten pounds. So what our community said, well, what if

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Speaker 1: I get ten pounds of gold, and then I use

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Speaker 1: some way to determine the mass of that gold, and

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Speaker 1: then I use that same measurement for the crown. If

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Speaker 1: the measurements the same, then we can come to the

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Speaker 1: inclusion that the gold that is gold in the crown.

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Speaker 1: If the if it's different, then we can say that

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Speaker 1: maybe there's a different material in here. So what he

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Speaker 1: did was he took a bath. Yes he did. So

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Speaker 1: this all has to do with the displacement of water

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Speaker 1: by putting the the And again we're just using this

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Speaker 1: this measurement out of for for simplicity's sake. Putting ten

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Speaker 1: pounds of gold in the bath, he sees how much

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Speaker 1: water is displaced, how far that water is displaced in

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Speaker 1: the bath, and then putting the crown in there, he

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Speaker 1: can see how much water is displaced from there, and

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Speaker 1: the the amount is different than he knows that the

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Speaker 1: two materials are not the same. And supposedly he became

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Speaker 1: so excited by this discovery that he ran out of

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Speaker 1: his home. Starkers, that's not a joke. That's part of

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Speaker 1: the legend. Know that that part is not what's cracking

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Speaker 1: up Starkers. He was naked as a blue jay down

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Speaker 1: the road. I'm turning into my uh my kin folk here.

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Speaker 1: Um so anyway, yeah, completely nude, running down the street

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Speaker 1: and screams out Eureka, which means I have found it.

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Speaker 1: Also is a quirky uh dramatic comedy on the Sci

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Speaker 1: Fi Network, Yes it is, anyway, so Eureka. That's that's

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Speaker 1: where we get that. When when you have someone who

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Speaker 1: makes a discovering screams at Eureka, they are essentially paying

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Speaker 1: homage to our comedes. Which again, since this is a

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Speaker 1: potentially apocryphal story, we might just be paying homage to

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Speaker 1: a legend. Well, apparently that the bathtub part is what's

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Speaker 1: probably apocryphal, but the crown part apparently is true. Um,

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Speaker 1: they do. They do seem to feel, or at least

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Speaker 1: Britannica does seems to feel that that that he was

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Speaker 1: asked to determine whether or not the crown was actually

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Speaker 1: gold apparently really did happen. Yeah, And and then you know,

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Speaker 1: you would want somebody like Archimedes to do this because

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Speaker 1: he was thinking scientifically in this case, and the reason

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Speaker 1: you might say, well, why don't they just scratched the

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Speaker 1: crown and see if they're silver under bite it like

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Speaker 1: your coin. Right. Well, the problem here was that the

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Speaker 1: crown was considered to be almost a holy relic. It

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Speaker 1: was because you're the kings of the Greeks were they

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Speaker 1: would trace their lineage back to gods, and so you

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Speaker 1: couldn't destroy the crown in any way because that was

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Speaker 1: an affront to the gods. So he had to find

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Speaker 1: a non destructive way to test this without, you know,

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Speaker 1: without actually causing any sort of damage to the crown,

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Speaker 1: which makes it way more difficult. Ha, there's just Jonathan

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Speaker 1: from two thousand and forty seven, yep, still doing them reruns,

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Speaker 1: just here to tell you. In order for them to

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Speaker 1: keep me around here, I got to introduce you to

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Speaker 1: some of our sponsors, so uh, enjoy. We have another

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Speaker 1: object that is attributed to Archimedes, although it's very possible

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Speaker 1: that it actually predates his lifetime and it's just that

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Speaker 1: he observed it and then was able to apply it elsewhere,

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Speaker 1: which is the Archimedes screw. Yes, you know, well, how

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Speaker 1: could it not be archimedes invention? It has his name

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Speaker 1: right there in the name. Well, yeah, McDonald's, isn't named

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Speaker 1: for somebody named McDonald, so you know there's a name.

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Speaker 1: A name is is a tricky thing sometimes, but yes,

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Speaker 1: he did. He did observe the principle that uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: the hydrostatic principle using using the screw to raise water,

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Speaker 1: which sounds counterintuitive at first until you realize how this

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Speaker 1: is implemented. It's actually a screw that is, in general,

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Speaker 1: the screw is encased in a two and then you

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Speaker 1: lay it in a at an angle whereof you know,

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Speaker 1: one end is raised at the top and the other

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Speaker 1: end goes into the water. So you've got one end

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Speaker 1: that that descends into the water and you have one

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Speaker 1: end that's above the water level. You start turning that

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Speaker 1: screw and what does is it scoops the water and

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Speaker 1: the water travels up the screw just because of the

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Speaker 1: principle of the screw as you turn it within this tube.

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Speaker 1: Now there's you know, you might have some leakage issues

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Speaker 1: where some of the water leaks back down to the

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Speaker 1: next level down, but as as soon as you start

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Speaker 1: turning that screw with a nice clip, eventually the water

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Speaker 1: starts coming to the surface and the the speed that

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Speaker 1: you turn the screw will counteract the leaking problem. And

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Speaker 1: since it's just leaking to the next level down, it

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Speaker 1: essentially becomes a non issue once you get to a

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Speaker 1: certain speed and you can actually lift water out of

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Speaker 1: out of a body of water that way. And this

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Speaker 1: was often used in Archimedes time to pull water from

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Speaker 1: say a lake and put it into an irrigation system.

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Speaker 1: The Greeks and Romans were both very big on irrigation. Yes, indeed, um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: actually that reminds me of there's an infant toy that

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Speaker 1: has three or four little plastic balls and there's a

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Speaker 1: screw inside, and if you push down and it's encased

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Speaker 1: as you said, and not in a tube, it's actually

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Speaker 1: sort of a it's not conical, but it does get

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Speaker 1: narrower at the top than it is at the bottom.

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Speaker 1: And when you press down on the plunger in the center,

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Speaker 1: it makes the screw turn and the faster you push it,

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Speaker 1: the higher the balls climb up the screw until you

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Speaker 1: stop and then they know spin back down. I mean

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Speaker 1: there's you know, not hydro static, there's no water, and

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Speaker 1: but yeah, it's the same kind of thing, and you

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Speaker 1: can sort of if you've seen that, that's you can

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Speaker 1: sort of imagine that because it's you don't often see

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Speaker 1: an Archimedes screw in practice, although you you can see

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Speaker 1: them in practice if you were to go to certain

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Speaker 1: hydro electric plants, they would be used in practice in

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Speaker 1: reverse because then what you do is you you turn

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Speaker 1: the If you happen to pour water on the top

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Speaker 1: of the screw, it will make the screw turn. So

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Speaker 1: you know, turning the screw will bring water to the top.

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Speaker 1: But if you pour water on the top of the screw,

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Speaker 1: it makes the screw turn, so it's the reverse action. Well,

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Speaker 1: that means if you are able to position the screw

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Speaker 1: so that a flow of water is constant on the

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Speaker 1: top of it, then the screw will keep turning. You

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Speaker 1: can make that screw to work. You can have that screw,

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Speaker 1: uh use, you can use it to drive a generator,

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Speaker 1: an electric generator, and thus you can create electricity from water.

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Speaker 1: That's just one way. I mean there are turbines as well.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's not the only method of of using

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Speaker 1: water to drive an electric generator, but it is one way. Yeah,

429
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 1: I was actually thinking of the Tesla turbine when you

430
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 1: mentioned that um which is also a fascinating thing. We

431
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: have an article on the website about that. As a

432
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:53,480
Speaker 1: matter of fact, it's not using the same exact principle,

433
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 1: but it's also a way of using water or to

434
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: uh to turn a turbine. That's not you know, something

435
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:02,400
Speaker 1: what I would think of was typical. But anyway, I digress,

436
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 1: And we again we should point out, I mean, we've

437
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: mentioned it a couple of times, but it bears repeating

438
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 1: that the the actual Archimedes screw. There are at least

439
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 1: some indications that this was being used in Egypt, UH,

440
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 1: well before Archimedes ever had his name attached to it. Yeah,

441
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:24,119
Speaker 1: completely by chance. UM. A few months ago, I was

442
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:28,360
Speaker 1: reading the UH the Biography of Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff.

443
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:31,359
Speaker 1: It's very popular there for a while, UM, and I

444
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 1: hadn't really read a lot about ancient Egypt. But he

445
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:39,400
Speaker 1: Archimedes was actually in contact with UH some of the

446
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:44,320
Speaker 1: scientists in Alexandria, which at that time Alexandria and Egypt

447
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 1: was probably the world center of learning, or at least

448
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 1: one of the top UH centers of scholarship, you know,

449
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:56,200
Speaker 1: and he apparently was was in contact with them and

450
00:26:56,560 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 1: had spent some time in Egypt before he went to Syracuse.

451
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 1: Uh so it is not at all unlikely, um that

452
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have you know that that he would have

453
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 1: had contact with those uh those scientists over there and

454
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:14,439
Speaker 1: gotten some some cool ideas, you know. And he also

455
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 1: was attributed with the creation of a game. Really yeah,

456
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:23,160
Speaker 1: did you hear about stonemacheon or stomachion. I have heard

457
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:25,639
Speaker 1: of it, but I didn't realize this was this was

458
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,639
Speaker 1: related to our comedies. It's attributed to him. It's a

459
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,880
Speaker 1: it's a game that you play with these different shapes.

460
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:33,919
Speaker 1: It's almost like having a puzzle in a way, like

461
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:35,959
Speaker 1: these shapes if you if you put them all together

462
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 1: in one way, it will create essentially a square. But

463
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:42,880
Speaker 1: the idea is to use those shapes to create other

464
00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:47,159
Speaker 1: recognizable shapes. And it's really an exercise in creativity, like

465
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 1: seeing seeing the potential of geometry to build um shapes

466
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: that are more organic, so things like you use them

467
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 1: to build a tree or the example I saw was

468
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 1: an elephant um, which is kind of it's just kind

469
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:02,640
Speaker 1: of interesting. Is the idea that you have to use

470
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 1: all the shapes in the group to create a recognizable object,

471
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:14,439
Speaker 1: an interesting object. And uh so that's also attributed to Archimedes.

472
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:19,199
Speaker 1: But again, this is another one of those attributions that

473
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:22,720
Speaker 1: we can't be completely certain is accurate. It's just one

474
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 1: of those. Another another interesting thing of something that Archimedes

475
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:34,440
Speaker 1: may have had a hand in. Um, so shapes actually, yeah, um,

476
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:36,880
Speaker 1: looking for something, darn it? All right? Hang on, well,

477
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: well you look and then we will pick up. All right,

478
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 1: speaking of shapes, Um, you know he was, he was

479
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 1: involved with many. He published a lot of his work,

480
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 1: and there there is an indication that he may have

481
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 1: had other work that he either didn't publish or that

482
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 1: was later lost. Um. Again, there's been a lot of

483
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 1: time that has passed now since he is he has

484
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 1: left us. But um, one of the things we do

485
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: know that he was fascinated with shapes. Um. He was

486
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 1: able to, uh to figure out the surface area of

487
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 1: a spear fear of radius R. You remember this back

488
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 1: from your mathematics classes. I have a vague memory of it. Yeah, yeah.

489
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 1: S equals for pie r squared. Yeah, and the volume

490
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,959
Speaker 1: is two thirds of the cylinder in which it is inscribed.

491
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:44,040
Speaker 1: V equals four thirds pie r cubed. I have not

492
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: had to know those those formula and so long, but

493
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: they came back to me as soon as I saw that,

494
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 1: and apparently, uh, he was so excited about this that

495
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 1: this is actually, uh what his tomb was marked with. Yes,

496
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: Marcus Salius Cicero owned his tomb which had been overgrown

497
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 1: with uh uh greenery, let's say, and um, probably about

498
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty years or so after he died,

499
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 1: and found that his uh, his tomb had been inscribed

500
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 1: with a a sphere or had been marked with a

501
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 1: sphere inscribed in a cylinder. And that's uh, I just

502
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: think that's fascinating. I mean, going back to what I

503
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 1: learned about geometry and um uh calculus, I think of

504
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: people who came much later than that, but you know,

505
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 1: in general, but Archimedes really had a huge influence on

506
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 1: many many other people. Of course, his writings were known

507
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 1: to uh, to the Arabic world. A lot of a

508
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: lot of scientists and mathematicians from that era in in

509
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 1: later centuries were able to take his work and build

510
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: upon it. Um, and it's just uh, it's just cool stuff.

511
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,560
Speaker 1: He also did a lot with with mathematics as it was,

512
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 1: you know, working on place value systems UM, and lots

513
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 1: and lots of different things he wasn't he wasn't. Uh

514
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: he was, I would say, Polly mathic. Yes, you know

515
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: somebody who is is um well has has knowledge in

516
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: multiple areas, very knowledgeable about a variety of mathematical and

517
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: science topics, and we'll probably talk about other individuals who

518
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 1: fall into that category as well. Hi, it's Johnathan of

519
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen. Again, I don't know who that old

520
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: man was who came in here, but I hope you

521
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 1: guys enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff. It was

522
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 1: a lot of fun for us to research and do

523
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: something a little different from what we had been doing

524
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 1: in the past, and I look forward to doing more

525
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: of those in the future. In fact, I have plans

526
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: to do one about Leonardo da Vinci, a true genius

527
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 1: of the Renaissance who has a lot of interesting stories,

528
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 1: some apocryphal about him, and I hope to do an

529
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 1: episode about that in the near future. But if you

530
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: guys have any suggestions for topics I should cover on

531
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:05,520
Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, send them my way. The

532
00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 1: email address for the show is tech Stuff at how

533
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or draw me a line on

534
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 1: Facebook or Twitter. The handle of both of those is

535
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 1: tex stuff hs W. You know, back in two thousand eleven,

536
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 1: we didn't have a merchandise store, but we have one today.

537
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 1: Then you can visit it. It's t public dot com

538
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: slash tech stuff. Every purchase you make supports the show

539
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 1: and we thank you for it. Go check that out

540
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:30,840
Speaker 1: and don't forget to follow us on Instagram. And that's

541
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 1: it for me. I'll talk to you again really soon

542
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics, because

543
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com