WEBVTT - Techstuff Classic: Eureka Archimedes 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.880 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.239 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.680 how Stuff Works in love all things tech, and it's 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:25.079 time for another classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:30.240 originally published way back in June two thousand and eleven. 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:36.960 We had only just invented technology. That's a lie, and 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:38.960 you'll know why that's a lie because in this episode 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:44.479 we talked about ancient technology. This episode is titled Eureka Archimedes, 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:48.080 in which I am my co host Chris Palette. At 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.880 the time, we we look into Archimedes and the supposed 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:56.160 inventions he created during his lifetime, some of which we 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.880 think are probably apocryphal. But it was a fun at 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:02.840 sisode where we really researched historical tech. I hope you 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.360 enjoy it. In the past, we have talked about many 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:10.920 fascinating people in tech um, most of whom lived in 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.839 the twenty and twenty one centuries. Today, we're going back 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:19.360 a bit farther, Yeah, to the point of of two 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.760 eight seven b C would be the the year that 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:26.760 this fellow was born, and we are talking about Archimedes. Yes, 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:30.040 the developer of the t R S A D. I'm kidding, 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:34.240 he's definitely a precursor to that. Um. Yes, we're not 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:38.760 talking Texas instruments, we're talking Greek ones. So Archimedes was 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:42.240 a mathematician, he was an astronomer, he was an engineer 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:46.319 and inventor. Very clever fellow, I guess that would probably 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.840 an understatement. Oh, yes, one of the fathers of calculus, 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:56.080 not not the calculus that we used today, but precursor again. Um, well, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.240 we've talked about it a lot in in the past 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:02.000 two We've talked about the principle simultaneous discovery, where people 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:04.120 more than one person comes up with the same idea. 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:08.080 We've also talked about how people to have discoveries build 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.760 on other people's work. And Archimedes was definitely a founder 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.200 of many, many of our technologies. Yeah, you would call 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.600 him the father of integral calculus. Not not the same 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:21.919 thing as neutronian calculus um, which is of course much 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.440 later on. So and and Chris has already made mention 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:29.240 of one of the famous quotes attributed to Archimedes, which is, 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:31.440 give me a place to stand, and I will move 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:35.480 the earth and it sounds like something that a megalomaniacal 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:40.320 supervillain would say. But in this case, Archimedes is talking 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.680 about the discoveries he made and what we would call 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:49.200 basic mechanical structures now, things like pulleys and levers. In 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:53.040 that case, we're talking specifically about leavers. But our Comedes 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.240 really was interested in the relationship of pulleys leavers and 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.280 how they could be used to do work. And um, 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.320 he spent quite a bit of time perfecting that, so 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.200 much so that there are certain inventions that are are 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.400 associated with him that are related in some form to 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:12.520 simple machines, although not all of those inventions are necessarily 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:17.760 straight from uh, from archimedes brain. But we're gonna talk 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:19.880 a little bit about some of the things that he 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:21.840 did do, and then some of the things that are 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.919 attributed to him that perhaps he did not do or 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.520 perhaps just didn't work. There's one in particular that's pretty 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.200 famous due to a MythBusters episode that we'll get to. 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:35.760 That's one of my favorites. Actually. Now Archimedes. Archimedes his 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.720 dad was an astronomer, so he was growing up and 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.880 he was exposed to the sciences. Um, he was probably 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:49.360 taught by followers of Euclid, and uh he was. You know, 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:51.720 what we know of him is mostly from stuff that 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.680 was written well after his death, and because of that 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:58.520 we can't be completely certain about the details of his life. 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:02.440 In fact, there's still confusion about exactly when he died. 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.480 It was sometime around two hundred twelve or two hundred 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:07.280 eleven b C. And I was born in two eight 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:11.080 seven b C. Remember we count backwards, right, probably confuse 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:13.200 the heck out of them at the time. What are 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:18.280 we coming down to? So yeah, so, so he died 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:20.960 around two twelve to eleven b C. And you might ask, well, 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:26.520 how did Archimedes die? How did Archimedes die violently? Unfortunately, 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.640 it was during a sacking of Syracuse, which is that 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:34.320 was archimedes home. He lived in Syracuse, in Sicily, and 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:36.559 at the time it was an independent Greek city state 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.440 before it was you know, physically uprooted and moved to 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:45.720 New York. Yes, no, yes, not how exactly what happened? No, no, now, 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:51.320 the original original Syracuse. So, so in the Romans were 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:56.000 in a war with It was a Roman Carthin Carthaginian war. 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:58.440 Says Carthage and Rome are in a war with each 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:00.479 other in Syracuse got pulled into the middle of that, 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:04.600 despite attempts to kind of sort of not do that, 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.400 but various rulers of Syracuse ended up siding with either 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:12.479 Rome or Carthage during the the the whole conflict, and 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:16.520 at one point in the war, Rome besieged Syracuse, and 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:21.280 during the attack a Roman soldier came upon Archimedes, and 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.840 although there were specific orders to spare the life of Archimedes, 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:30.200 the Roman soldier killed him, apparently not knowing the identity 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.840 of the man he put to the sword. So our 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.359 Comedes was he was valued by both sides. He was 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.679 recognized as a genius, and neither side wanted this genius 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.680 to be destroyed. But as an unfortunate side effect of war, 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:49.320 sometimes accidents happened. Now why was why did people consider 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:51.279 him a genius? Well, one was that he was making 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:57.000 incredible contributions to mathematics. He had found really interesting relationships 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.400 between things like the volume of the sphere and the 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:03.839 surface of cylinders, and found out interesting ways to to 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.960 kind of explain those relationships, including a very close approximation 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:14.520 of pie. Um pie. We've lost him, haven't had breakfast yet? 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:19.760 Um so he was definitely valued for his intelligence, but 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.680 beyond that, he also was this great inventor. In fact, 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.480 during the war, during the siege on Syracuse, he came 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.760 up with an invention known as the iron hand that 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.799 played a big part in the defense of the city. 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:35.720 Did you come across the iron hand? Actually I did 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:38.040 not come across the iron hand. This is different from 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.599 the iron fist. Yeah, I guess the one is used 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:44.080 for defense. The other one you rule with that. It 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:48.839 was also sometimes called archimedes claw. Um, it's a it's 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:53.080 a brilliant, brilliant defense mechanism for that time. It would 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:55.800 not work today. But here's what here's what it was. 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:01.320 So Syracuse was um, right up against the like essentially 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.240 there was you know, a slight cliff and then you 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.240 had a city wall that that was I think twenty 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:11.400 seven kilometers long back when it stood. It doesn't stand anymore, um, 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.480 but it you know, then you it was essentially right 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.320 up against the ocean. So one of the possible avenues 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.080 of attack was an attack by sea, which is what 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:24.840 one of the venues that Rome was interested in. So, uh, 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.640 the leader of Syricuse came to Archimedes and said, I 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:31.600 need a way to protect us while from these attacks 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:34.600 from the from the ocean. So what our communes came 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:38.240 up with was an enormous lever that you would mount 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.280 on the sides of the city walls. Are actually on 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:42.680 the top of the city walls. So you have this 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:47.160 huge lever that that extends out over the ocean. From 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.920 the end of the lever, you have a rope that 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:51.840 drops down and on the end of the rope is 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.920 a grappling hook. Now on the other end, the short 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.520 end of the lever, you put huge lead weights and 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.080 you first put them near the pivot points so that 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.000 the weight of the long part of the lever keeps 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.760 it level. All right. What you try to do is 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:09.960 you try and catch the bow of a ship, a 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.040 Roman ship with that grappling hook. Once you do, you 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:17.440 slide those weights back from the the the fulcrum there 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.120 to the very end of the short arm of the lever. 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:22.800 Now that weight is enough to push that end of 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:25.200 the lever down, meaning the long arm of the lever 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:27.640 goes up. That's the arm that, by the way, is 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.200 attached to the rope and the grappling hook. So you 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:34.120 literally pull the end of the Roman ship out of 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.640 the water. You then use the lever to shake the 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.440 Roman ship and eventually the grappling hook breaks off of it, 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.240 making the Roman ship fall again, either smashing against the 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.840 water or the rocks on the base of the cliffs. 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.200 That's brilliant, but extremely complicated. It seems like trying to 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:59.960 build the lever. Yeah, and however, was incredibly effective. Yeah, 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:05.320 so effective that Rome abandoned their sea based attacks. They 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.840 instead of instead of attacking Syracuse by see, what they 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:11.000 did was they set up a blockade further out in 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.040 the ocean where they're not going to get hit by 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.200 a grappling hook from the shore, and then they ended 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:21.720 up attacking by land and eventually sacked Syracuse. So while 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:25.880 the victory was a a a good one, I mean 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:30.320 it was, it was definitely a lauded victory, but it 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:32.920 was short lived because all they did was they changed 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:40.120 tactics and unfortunately the the iron hand was not as 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.040 good at defending against land based attacks were good at all. Now, 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:50.160 there were other theoretical weapons that some people say actually 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:53.200 were built and used against the Romans during this very 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.760 same siege. And uh, one of the one I was 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.120 talking about with MythBusters was the the Archimedes death A. 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:02.880 Oh right, you know what I'm talking about here, right right, 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.880 How he theoretically was able to uh set fire to 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.959 the sales, Yeah, to the sales or actual ships, yeah, 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.240 from a distance. The idea being that he designed a 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:18.079 device that would reflect and concentrate light from the sun 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:20.840 and direct it at ships, and it would be so 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.040 intense that it would be hot enough to to set 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:25.319 fire to at least the sales of the ship, if 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:29.000 not the actual ships themselves. Uh and and and at 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:32.240 least some of the reports it was uh said that 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:36.200 he used shields and he just polished the surface of 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.840 the metal shields and array them in a in a 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:42.839 shape that would direct the light. It's kind of very 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.280 concentrated way. So you have all these different shields that 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.040 are tilted just so so that the light that they 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:52.479 reflect all hits the same spot. Sort of like the 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:55.120 devices that you used to cook a hot dog or 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:57.280 something like that that you used to use a camp. 0:10:57.600 --> 0:10:59.600 You know, you have your your mirror and you stick 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.440 your food there, and you know, the sunlight reflects off 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:06.760 the inside of the mirror, and except much much larger 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:11.720 and stuff I used fire yeah, anyway, now that that 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.600 actually isn't so far fetched in a way. I mean, 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:18.920 he really was interested in catoptrics, which I didn't know 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:20.760 was a word, so I'm trying to use it and 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:23.280 build it into my vocabulary that I don't know what 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:25.839 it is, so please tell me. Yes, Well, I actually 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:30.240 got that word from Britannica's profile on Archimedes um. It 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:34.640 is the the part of optics that works with the 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:39.200 reflection of light from mirrors from different types. They could 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:42.959 be flat or curved mirrors, but catoptrics is is that, 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.839 uh study, and he was particularly interested in it, so 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.280 it wasn't like it was out of character for him 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:53.640 to be interested in something like that. But apparently it 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:58.079 doesn't so much work well. On the MythBusters episode that 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:02.520 they made UM, the MythBusters used they they actually tried 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.120 to build one themselves and it didn't really work so well. 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.000 And then they set out a challenge to various groups 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:11.800 to try and build UM a working Archimedes death ray, 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.480 and they found some success, something where it was warm 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:16.920 enough where it could in theory set fire to maybe 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.640 the sales, but it would it took time, and you know, 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:22.319 you had to worry about it being the right time 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:24.040 of day for you to be able to do this, 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.680 And it would really depend on the ship being very 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:31.800 uh well complicit in the burning process, in the sense of, 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.480 if the ship's moving around a lot, then you have 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:36.400 to be able to move the ray so that it 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:38.679 stays on the same general area in order to keep 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.760 increasing that temperature until it reaches the burning point. And 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:45.000 if the ship's moving, then you may not be able 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.720 to train the ray on that on that uh moving 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:52.480 target fast enough to be able to um to actually 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:54.880 get the temperature hot enough to for stuff to burn. 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:59.680 So it's even if it were an actual weapon, it 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:04.160 was necessarily an effective one, not like the not like 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:09.360 the the lever that he had designed, which was demonstrably effective, 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.959 effective enough to make the Romans change their tactics. Hey guys, 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:15.679 it's modern day, Jonathan, and I'm not talking about modern 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:19.000 day two thousand eleven Jonathan. This is two thousand eighteen, Jonathan. 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:23.200 I'm so much wiser and thinner than two thousand eleven Jonathan. 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:25.440 But I'm here to say I hope you're enjoying the episode, 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:27.040 but it's time for us to take a quick break 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:38.920 to thank our sponsor. Now, there are also other interesting 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.800 inventions that we attribute to our committees, one of which 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:48.680 is that he probably did make were planetariums. Oh yes, 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:53.720 they were also called spheres at the time the Archimedes Spears, 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.480 and it was if you don't know what a planetarium is, 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:01.440 a planetarium is essentially a geo sent trick model of 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:05.880 what the uh, the stars and position of planets in 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:07.640 the Sun and the moon, what what it looks like 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.240 from the perspective of Earth. You know, it's a it's 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:14.720 an Earth based view of the the galaxies around us, 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:19.200 the universe essentially. And so Archimedes had apparently built one 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:24.200 of these, possibly that used interesting little gears to mimic 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:28.680 the motion of the planets and stars and constellations to 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.920 keep everything aligned properly and making the move the way 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:37.040 they actually do through the sky. And uh he built 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:40.200 a couple of these apparently, although both of them have 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.760 been lost. There were other devices that have been recovered 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.160 since then from shipwrecks and things like that that may 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:52.280 either be an actual example of the spheres that Archimedes 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:55.640 himself built, or maybe built on the same principles that 0:14:55.760 --> 0:15:00.160 Archimedes used when building his but that's that's one of 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.360 those things where we have we've heard the record of 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:05.600 him building these things, and he certainly had the intelligence 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.280 necessary to be able to design such a thing, we 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:12.760 just don't have the physical proof of it. Um. Yeah. 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.040 There was a treatise that he apparently wrote called the 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:20.440 sand Reckoner that had to do with um astronomy and 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:25.440 his astronomical thought. He actually had had been able to 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:30.840 uh sort of using his tools of his time, he 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.520 was able to get an eye a reasonable idea of 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:38.120 the diameter of the sun, um, you know, through his 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.120 uh using instruments to observe this. And this is of 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:45.080 course long before people that we sort of associate with 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:51.120 um astronomy, you know, modern astronomy, people like Galileo UM. 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.640 You know. There he was really sort of in a 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:57.840 groundbreaking category in this regard. But all there were others 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:02.000 who who worked with these princes bools to um. You know, 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:06.080 his work went into uh several others as well, but UM, 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:09.880 I think it's sort of disappeared for a while. UM. 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.280 And they were the kinds of things too that stood out, 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:16.160 people like Plutarch, the uh um you know, who wrote 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:18.880 quite a bit about the famous people of his time 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:24.440 categorized Archimedes work. Um, and he's you know, these things 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:27.000 were well enough documented that he was able to to 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.280 pull this out. So yeah, I'd like to talk about 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:35.200 another real quick legendary Archimedes moment. Okay, um, this would 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.200 be another great quote to do with the bathtub. Yes, 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:40.600 it does. It has to do with the bathtub. So 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:45.280 this is again a possibly apocryphal story. In other words, 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.280 this this may not be true. In fact, I think 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:50.760 a lot of historians put this in the the realm 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:54.000 of legend for for many reasons, one of which is 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:58.040 that the solution Archimedes came up with was actually not 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:03.640 as not as difficult to to get to as you 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.479 would imagine. So in other words, it seems like it's 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.520 too easy an answer for Archimedes is almost the argument here. 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:12.960 But the the situation was that you had the King 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:19.720 of Syracuse who had commissioned a a golden crown, and 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:24.920 this golden crown was made, but the king was suspicious 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.720 of the golden crown. He thought that perhaps the person 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:31.480 who made it actually used silver to make the crown 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:35.040 and then coded it with gold in order to h 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:38.720 to cheat the king out of money. Essentially because silver 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:43.159 was less precious than gold, and therefore by using gold 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.040 silver in the crown, he could make it for for 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:49.639 less money than it would cost him to to gather 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:53.280 all the materials and thus have a higher profit. So, 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:55.479 how do you figure out if it weighs the right 0:17:55.520 --> 0:18:00.560 amount for a crown of that general size? Um, how 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.520 do you figure out whether or not silver was used? Well, 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.240 silver doesn't weigh as much as gold does, so, in 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.119 other in other words, in order to make a silver 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:10.960 crown that would weigh the same amount as a gold crown, 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.520 you would have to add more silver. Right, So, if 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:18.520 you had a cube of silver and a cube of 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:21.560 gold that were the exact same size, the gold would 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:23.920 weigh more. Yes, So in order to make the cube's 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:25.959 weigh the same, you would have to have a bigger 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.840 cube of silver. Right. So that was that was what 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.040 Archimedes came up with. He came up with this idea 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.800 of well, if I use the amount of gold that 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:37.760 it takes to create the weight of this crown, and 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.600 just let's say this crown weighs let's just say ten pounds, Okay, 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.720 So for the our for argument's sake, this crown weighed 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:46.439 ten pounds. So what our community said, well, what if 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:50.239 I get ten pounds of gold, and then I use 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:52.959 some way to determine the mass of that gold, and 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:56.640 then I use that same measurement for the crown. If 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.760 the measurements the same, then we can come to the 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.800 inclusion that the gold that is gold in the crown. 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:04.520 If the if it's different, then we can say that 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.240 maybe there's a different material in here. So what he 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:12.000 did was he took a bath. Yes he did. So 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:14.520 this all has to do with the displacement of water 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:18.680 by putting the the And again we're just using this 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:22.120 this measurement out of for for simplicity's sake. Putting ten 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:24.760 pounds of gold in the bath, he sees how much 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.639 water is displaced, how far that water is displaced in 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:30.719 the bath, and then putting the crown in there, he 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:33.600 can see how much water is displaced from there, and 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.359 the the amount is different than he knows that the 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.719 two materials are not the same. And supposedly he became 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:45.760 so excited by this discovery that he ran out of 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:51.359 his home. Starkers, that's not a joke. That's part of 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.520 the legend. Know that that part is not what's cracking 0:19:54.600 --> 0:20:00.560 up Starkers. He was naked as a blue jay down 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.720 the road. I'm turning into my uh my kin folk here. 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.680 Um so anyway, yeah, completely nude, running down the street 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:13.520 and screams out Eureka, which means I have found it. 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:18.680 Also is a quirky uh dramatic comedy on the Sci 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:23.440 Fi Network, Yes it is, anyway, so Eureka. That's that's 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:25.280 where we get that. When when you have someone who 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:29.080 makes a discovering screams at Eureka, they are essentially paying 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:32.760 homage to our comedes. Which again, since this is a 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:37.840 potentially apocryphal story, we might just be paying homage to 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:42.240 a legend. Well, apparently that the bathtub part is what's 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:48.040 probably apocryphal, but the crown part apparently is true. Um, 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:50.120 they do. They do seem to feel, or at least 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.919 Britannica does seems to feel that that that he was 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.359 asked to determine whether or not the crown was actually 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:01.439 gold apparently really did happen. Yeah, And and then you know, 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:04.000 you would want somebody like Archimedes to do this because 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.919 he was thinking scientifically in this case, and the reason 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.080 you might say, well, why don't they just scratched the 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:13.520 crown and see if they're silver under bite it like 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:16.000 your coin. Right. Well, the problem here was that the 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:20.399 crown was considered to be almost a holy relic. It 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:24.439 was because you're the kings of the Greeks were they 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:28.440 would trace their lineage back to gods, and so you 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:31.480 couldn't destroy the crown in any way because that was 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:34.040 an affront to the gods. So he had to find 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:37.879 a non destructive way to test this without, you know, 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:40.440 without actually causing any sort of damage to the crown, 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:45.120 which makes it way more difficult. Ha, there's just Jonathan 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:50.440 from two thousand and forty seven, yep, still doing them reruns, 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:54.400 just here to tell you. In order for them to 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:57.720 keep me around here, I got to introduce you to 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:09.159 some of our sponsors, so uh, enjoy. We have another 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:13.720 object that is attributed to Archimedes, although it's very possible 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:17.719 that it actually predates his lifetime and it's just that 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:20.440 he observed it and then was able to apply it elsewhere, 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:23.480 which is the Archimedes screw. Yes, you know, well, how 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:27.120 could it not be archimedes invention? It has his name 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:34.600 right there in the name. Well, yeah, McDonald's, isn't named 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:38.920 for somebody named McDonald, so you know there's a name. 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:42.280 A name is is a tricky thing sometimes, but yes, 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:46.359 he did. He did observe the principle that uh, you know, 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:50.560 the hydrostatic principle using using the screw to raise water, 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:55.280 which sounds counterintuitive at first until you realize how this 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.119 is implemented. It's actually a screw that is, in general, 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:01.760 the screw is encased in a two and then you 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:04.000 lay it in a at an angle whereof you know, 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:06.240 one end is raised at the top and the other 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:09.000 end goes into the water. So you've got one end 0:23:09.000 --> 0:23:11.399 that that descends into the water and you have one 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:14.679 end that's above the water level. You start turning that 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:17.640 screw and what does is it scoops the water and 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:19.960 the water travels up the screw just because of the 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:23.320 principle of the screw as you turn it within this tube. 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:27.159 Now there's you know, you might have some leakage issues 0:23:27.200 --> 0:23:29.000 where some of the water leaks back down to the 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:30.840 next level down, but as as soon as you start 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:34.040 turning that screw with a nice clip, eventually the water 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:37.439 starts coming to the surface and the the speed that 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:40.919 you turn the screw will counteract the leaking problem. And 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:43.760 since it's just leaking to the next level down, it 0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:46.439 essentially becomes a non issue once you get to a 0:23:46.480 --> 0:23:49.520 certain speed and you can actually lift water out of 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:51.879 out of a body of water that way. And this 0:23:51.960 --> 0:23:56.359 was often used in Archimedes time to pull water from 0:23:56.440 --> 0:24:00.560 say a lake and put it into an irrigation system. 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:05.360 The Greeks and Romans were both very big on irrigation. Yes, indeed, um, yeah, 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:09.439 actually that reminds me of there's an infant toy that 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:13.159 has three or four little plastic balls and there's a 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:16.440 screw inside, and if you push down and it's encased 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:19.119 as you said, and not in a tube, it's actually 0:24:19.160 --> 0:24:22.600