Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works in love all things tech, and it's
Speaker 1: time for another classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode
Speaker 1: originally published way back in June two thousand and eleven.
Speaker 1: We had only just invented technology. That's a lie, and
Speaker 1: you'll know why that's a lie because in this episode
Speaker 1: we talked about ancient technology. This episode is titled Eureka Archimedes,
Speaker 1: in which I am my co host Chris Palette. At
Speaker 1: the time, we we look into Archimedes and the supposed
Speaker 1: inventions he created during his lifetime, some of which we
Speaker 1: think are probably apocryphal. But it was a fun at
Speaker 1: sisode where we really researched historical tech. I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy it. In the past, we have talked about many
Speaker 1: fascinating people in tech um, most of whom lived in
Speaker 1: the twenty and twenty one centuries. Today, we're going back
Speaker 1: a bit farther, Yeah, to the point of of two
Speaker 1: eight seven b C would be the the year that
Speaker 1: this fellow was born, and we are talking about Archimedes. Yes,
Speaker 1: the developer of the t R S A D. I'm kidding,
Speaker 1: he's definitely a precursor to that. Um. Yes, we're not
Speaker 1: talking Texas instruments, we're talking Greek ones. So Archimedes was
Speaker 1: a mathematician, he was an astronomer, he was an engineer
Speaker 1: and inventor. Very clever fellow, I guess that would probably
Speaker 1: an understatement. Oh, yes, one of the fathers of calculus,
Speaker 1: not not the calculus that we used today, but precursor again. Um, well,
Speaker 1: we've talked about it a lot in in the past
Speaker 1: two We've talked about the principle simultaneous discovery, where people
Speaker 1: more than one person comes up with the same idea.
Speaker 1: We've also talked about how people to have discoveries build
Speaker 1: on other people's work. And Archimedes was definitely a founder
Speaker 1: of many, many of our technologies. Yeah, you would call
Speaker 1: him the father of integral calculus. Not not the same
Speaker 1: thing as neutronian calculus um, which is of course much
Speaker 1: later on. So and and Chris has already made mention
Speaker 1: of one of the famous quotes attributed to Archimedes, which is,
Speaker 1: give me a place to stand, and I will move
Speaker 1: the earth and it sounds like something that a megalomaniacal
Speaker 1: supervillain would say. But in this case, Archimedes is talking
Speaker 1: about the discoveries he made and what we would call
Speaker 1: basic mechanical structures now, things like pulleys and levers. In
Speaker 1: that case, we're talking specifically about leavers. But our Comedes
Speaker 1: really was interested in the relationship of pulleys leavers and
Speaker 1: how they could be used to do work. And um,
Speaker 1: he spent quite a bit of time perfecting that, so
Speaker 1: much so that there are certain inventions that are are
Speaker 1: associated with him that are related in some form to
Speaker 1: simple machines, although not all of those inventions are necessarily
Speaker 1: straight from uh, from archimedes brain. But we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about some of the things that he
Speaker 1: did do, and then some of the things that are
Speaker 1: attributed to him that perhaps he did not do or
Speaker 1: perhaps just didn't work. There's one in particular that's pretty
Speaker 1: famous due to a MythBusters episode that we'll get to.
Speaker 1: That's one of my favorites. Actually. Now Archimedes. Archimedes his
Speaker 1: dad was an astronomer, so he was growing up and
Speaker 1: he was exposed to the sciences. Um, he was probably
Speaker 1: taught by followers of Euclid, and uh he was. You know,
Speaker 1: what we know of him is mostly from stuff that
Speaker 1: was written well after his death, and because of that
Speaker 1: we can't be completely certain about the details of his life.
Speaker 1: In fact, there's still confusion about exactly when he died.
Speaker 1: It was sometime around two hundred twelve or two hundred
Speaker 1: eleven b C. And I was born in two eight
Speaker 1: seven b C. Remember we count backwards, right, probably confuse
Speaker 1: the heck out of them at the time. What are
Speaker 1: we coming down to? So yeah, so, so he died
Speaker 1: around two twelve to eleven b C. And you might ask, well,
Speaker 1: how did Archimedes die? How did Archimedes die violently? Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it was during a sacking of Syracuse, which is that
Speaker 1: was archimedes home. He lived in Syracuse, in Sicily, and
Speaker 1: at the time it was an independent Greek city state
Speaker 1: before it was you know, physically uprooted and moved to
Speaker 1: New York. Yes, no, yes, not how exactly what happened? No, no, now,
Speaker 1: the original original Syracuse. So, so in the Romans were
Speaker 1: in a war with It was a Roman Carthin Carthaginian war.
Speaker 1: Says Carthage and Rome are in a war with each
Speaker 1: other in Syracuse got pulled into the middle of that,
Speaker 1: despite attempts to kind of sort of not do that,
Speaker 1: but various rulers of Syracuse ended up siding with either
Speaker 1: Rome or Carthage during the the the whole conflict, and
Speaker 1: at one point in the war, Rome besieged Syracuse, and
Speaker 1: during the attack a Roman soldier came upon Archimedes, and
Speaker 1: although there were specific orders to spare the life of Archimedes,
Speaker 1: the Roman soldier killed him, apparently not knowing the identity
Speaker 1: of the man he put to the sword. So our
Speaker 1: Comedes was he was valued by both sides. He was
Speaker 1: recognized as a genius, and neither side wanted this genius
Speaker 1: to be destroyed. But as an unfortunate side effect of war,
Speaker 1: sometimes accidents happened. Now why was why did people consider
Speaker 1: him a genius? Well, one was that he was making
Speaker 1: incredible contributions to mathematics. He had found really interesting relationships
Speaker 1: between things like the volume of the sphere and the
Speaker 1: surface of cylinders, and found out interesting ways to to
Speaker 1: kind of explain those relationships, including a very close approximation
Speaker 1: of pie. Um pie. We've lost him, haven't had breakfast yet?
Speaker 1: Um so he was definitely valued for his intelligence, but
Speaker 1: beyond that, he also was this great inventor. In fact,
Speaker 1: during the war, during the siege on Syracuse, he came
Speaker 1: up with an invention known as the iron hand that
Speaker 1: played a big part in the defense of the city.
Speaker 1: Did you come across the iron hand? Actually I did
Speaker 1: not come across the iron hand. This is different from
Speaker 1: the iron fist. Yeah, I guess the one is used
Speaker 1: for defense. The other one you rule with that. It
Speaker 1: was also sometimes called archimedes claw. Um, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a brilliant, brilliant defense mechanism for that time. It would
Speaker 1: not work today. But here's what here's what it was.
Speaker 1: So Syracuse was um, right up against the like essentially
Speaker 1: there was you know, a slight cliff and then you
Speaker 1: had a city wall that that was I think twenty
Speaker 1: seven kilometers long back when it stood. It doesn't stand anymore, um,
Speaker 1: but it you know, then you it was essentially right
Speaker 1: up against the ocean. So one of the possible avenues
Speaker 1: of attack was an attack by sea, which is what
Speaker 1: one of the venues that Rome was interested in. So, uh,
Speaker 1: the leader of Syricuse came to Archimedes and said, I
Speaker 1: need a way to protect us while from these attacks
Speaker 1: from the from the ocean. So what our communes came
Speaker 1: up with was an enormous lever that you would mount
Speaker 1: on the sides of the city walls. Are actually on
Speaker 1: the top of the city walls. So you have this
Speaker 1: huge lever that that extends out over the ocean. From
Speaker 1: the end of the lever, you have a rope that
Speaker 1: drops down and on the end of the rope is
Speaker 1: a grappling hook. Now on the other end, the short
Speaker 1: end of the lever, you put huge lead weights and
Speaker 1: you first put them near the pivot points so that
Speaker 1: the weight of the long part of the lever keeps
Speaker 1: it level. All right. What you try to do is
Speaker 1: you try and catch the bow of a ship, a
Speaker 1: Roman ship with that grappling hook. Once you do, you
Speaker 1: slide those weights back from the the the fulcrum there
Speaker 1: to the very end of the short arm of the lever.
Speaker 1: Now that weight is enough to push that end of
Speaker 1: the lever down, meaning the long arm of the lever
Speaker 1: goes up. That's the arm that, by the way, is
Speaker 1: attached to the rope and the grappling hook. So you
Speaker 1: literally pull the end of the Roman ship out of
Speaker 1: the water. You then use the lever to shake the
Speaker 1: Roman ship and eventually the grappling hook breaks off of it,
Speaker 1: making the Roman ship fall again, either smashing against the
Speaker 1: water or the rocks on the base of the cliffs.
Speaker 1: That's brilliant, but extremely complicated. It seems like trying to
Speaker 1: build the lever. Yeah, and however, was incredibly effective. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so effective that Rome abandoned their sea based attacks. They
Speaker 1: instead of instead of attacking Syracuse by see, what they
Speaker 1: did was they set up a blockade further out in
Speaker 1: the ocean where they're not going to get hit by
Speaker 1: a grappling hook from the shore, and then they ended
Speaker 1: up attacking by land and eventually sacked Syracuse. So while
Speaker 1: the victory was a a a good one, I mean
Speaker 1: it was, it was definitely a lauded victory, but it
Speaker 1: was short lived because all they did was they changed
Speaker 1: tactics and unfortunately the the iron hand was not as
Speaker 1: good at defending against land based attacks were good at all. Now,
Speaker 1: there were other theoretical weapons that some people say actually
Speaker 1: were built and used against the Romans during this very
Speaker 1: same siege. And uh, one of the one I was
Speaker 1: talking about with MythBusters was the the Archimedes death A.
Speaker 1: Oh right, you know what I'm talking about here, right right,
Speaker 1: How he theoretically was able to uh set fire to
Speaker 1: the sales, Yeah, to the sales or actual ships, yeah,
Speaker 1: from a distance. The idea being that he designed a
Speaker 1: device that would reflect and concentrate light from the sun
Speaker 1: and direct it at ships, and it would be so
Speaker 1: intense that it would be hot enough to to set
Speaker 1: fire to at least the sales of the ship, if
Speaker 1: not the actual ships themselves. Uh and and and at
Speaker 1: least some of the reports it was uh said that
Speaker 1: he used shields and he just polished the surface of
Speaker 1: the metal shields and array them in a in a
Speaker 1: shape that would direct the light. It's kind of very
Speaker 1: concentrated way. So you have all these different shields that
Speaker 1: are tilted just so so that the light that they
Speaker 1: reflect all hits the same spot. Sort of like the
Speaker 1: devices that you used to cook a hot dog or
Speaker 1: something like that that you used to use a camp.
Speaker 1: You know, you have your your mirror and you stick
Speaker 1: your food there, and you know, the sunlight reflects off
Speaker 1: the inside of the mirror, and except much much larger
Speaker 1: and stuff I used fire yeah, anyway, now that that
Speaker 1: actually isn't so far fetched in a way. I mean,
Speaker 1: he really was interested in catoptrics, which I didn't know
Speaker 1: was a word, so I'm trying to use it and
Speaker 1: build it into my vocabulary that I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is, so please tell me. Yes, Well, I actually
Speaker 1: got that word from Britannica's profile on Archimedes um. It
Speaker 1: is the the part of optics that works with the
Speaker 1: reflection of light from mirrors from different types. They could
Speaker 1: be flat or curved mirrors, but catoptrics is is that,
Speaker 1: uh study, and he was particularly interested in it, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't like it was out of character for him
Speaker 1: to be interested in something like that. But apparently it
Speaker 1: doesn't so much work well. On the MythBusters episode that
Speaker 1: they made UM, the MythBusters used they they actually tried
Speaker 1: to build one themselves and it didn't really work so well.
Speaker 1: And then they set out a challenge to various groups
Speaker 1: to try and build UM a working Archimedes death ray,
Speaker 1: and they found some success, something where it was warm
Speaker 1: enough where it could in theory set fire to maybe
Speaker 1: the sales, but it would it took time, and you know,
Speaker 1: you had to worry about it being the right time
Speaker 1: of day for you to be able to do this,
Speaker 1: And it would really depend on the ship being very
Speaker 1: uh well complicit in the burning process, in the sense of,
Speaker 1: if the ship's moving around a lot, then you have
Speaker 1: to be able to move the ray so that it
Speaker 1: stays on the same general area in order to keep
Speaker 1: increasing that temperature until it reaches the burning point. And
Speaker 1: if the ship's moving, then you may not be able
Speaker 1: to train the ray on that on that uh moving
Speaker 1: target fast enough to be able to um to actually
Speaker 1: get the temperature hot enough to for stuff to burn.
Speaker 1: So it's even if it were an actual weapon, it
Speaker 1: was necessarily an effective one, not like the not like
Speaker 1: the the lever that he had designed, which was demonstrably effective,
Speaker 1: effective enough to make the Romans change their tactics. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: it's modern day, Jonathan, and I'm not talking about modern
Speaker 1: day two thousand eleven Jonathan. This is two thousand eighteen, Jonathan.
Speaker 1: I'm so much wiser and thinner than two thousand eleven Jonathan.
Speaker 1: But I'm here to say I hope you're enjoying the episode,
Speaker 1: but it's time for us to take a quick break
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. Now, there are also other interesting
Speaker 1: inventions that we attribute to our committees, one of which
Speaker 1: is that he probably did make were planetariums. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: they were also called spheres at the time the Archimedes Spears,
Speaker 1: and it was if you don't know what a planetarium is,
Speaker 1: a planetarium is essentially a geo sent trick model of
Speaker 1: what the uh, the stars and position of planets in
Speaker 1: the Sun and the moon, what what it looks like
Speaker 1: from the perspective of Earth. You know, it's a it's
Speaker 1: an Earth based view of the the galaxies around us,
Speaker 1: the universe essentially. And so Archimedes had apparently built one
Speaker 1: of these, possibly that used interesting little gears to mimic
Speaker 1: the motion of the planets and stars and constellations to
Speaker 1: keep everything aligned properly and making the move the way
Speaker 1: they actually do through the sky. And uh he built
Speaker 1: a couple of these apparently, although both of them have
Speaker 1: been lost. There were other devices that have been recovered
Speaker 1: since then from shipwrecks and things like that that may
Speaker 1: either be an actual example of the spheres that Archimedes
Speaker 1: himself built, or maybe built on the same principles that
Speaker 1: Archimedes used when building his but that's that's one of
Speaker 1: those things where we have we've heard the record of
Speaker 1: him building these things, and he certainly had the intelligence
Speaker 1: necessary to be able to design such a thing, we
Speaker 1: just don't have the physical proof of it. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There was a treatise that he apparently wrote called the
Speaker 1: sand Reckoner that had to do with um astronomy and
Speaker 1: his astronomical thought. He actually had had been able to
Speaker 1: uh sort of using his tools of his time, he
Speaker 1: was able to get an eye a reasonable idea of
Speaker 1: the diameter of the sun, um, you know, through his
Speaker 1: uh using instruments to observe this. And this is of
Speaker 1: course long before people that we sort of associate with
Speaker 1: um astronomy, you know, modern astronomy, people like Galileo UM.
Speaker 1: You know. There he was really sort of in a
Speaker 1: groundbreaking category in this regard. But all there were others
Speaker 1: who who worked with these princes bools to um. You know,
Speaker 1: his work went into uh several others as well, but UM,
Speaker 1: I think it's sort of disappeared for a while. UM.
Speaker 1: And they were the kinds of things too that stood out,
Speaker 1: people like Plutarch, the uh um you know, who wrote
Speaker 1: quite a bit about the famous people of his time
Speaker 1: categorized Archimedes work. Um, and he's you know, these things
Speaker 1: were well enough documented that he was able to to
Speaker 1: pull this out. So yeah, I'd like to talk about
Speaker 1: another real quick legendary Archimedes moment. Okay, um, this would
Speaker 1: be another great quote to do with the bathtub. Yes,
Speaker 1: it does. It has to do with the bathtub. So
Speaker 1: this is again a possibly apocryphal story. In other words,
Speaker 1: this this may not be true. In fact, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of historians put this in the the realm
Speaker 1: of legend for for many reasons, one of which is
Speaker 1: that the solution Archimedes came up with was actually not
Speaker 1: as not as difficult to to get to as you
Speaker 1: would imagine. So in other words, it seems like it's
Speaker 1: too easy an answer for Archimedes is almost the argument here.
Speaker 1: But the the situation was that you had the King
Speaker 1: of Syracuse who had commissioned a a golden crown, and
Speaker 1: this golden crown was made, but the king was suspicious
Speaker 1: of the golden crown. He thought that perhaps the person
Speaker 1: who made it actually used silver to make the crown
Speaker 1: and then coded it with gold in order to h
Speaker 1: to cheat the king out of money. Essentially because silver
Speaker 1: was less precious than gold, and therefore by using gold
Speaker 1: silver in the crown, he could make it for for
Speaker 1: less money than it would cost him to to gather
Speaker 1: all the materials and thus have a higher profit. So,
Speaker 1: how do you figure out if it weighs the right
Speaker 1: amount for a crown of that general size? Um, how
Speaker 1: do you figure out whether or not silver was used? Well,
Speaker 1: silver doesn't weigh as much as gold does, so, in
Speaker 1: other in other words, in order to make a silver
Speaker 1: crown that would weigh the same amount as a gold crown,
Speaker 1: you would have to add more silver. Right, So, if
Speaker 1: you had a cube of silver and a cube of
Speaker 1: gold that were the exact same size, the gold would
Speaker 1: weigh more. Yes, So in order to make the cube's
Speaker 1: weigh the same, you would have to have a bigger
Speaker 1: cube of silver. Right. So that was that was what
Speaker 1: Archimedes came up with. He came up with this idea
Speaker 1: of well, if I use the amount of gold that
Speaker 1: it takes to create the weight of this crown, and
Speaker 1: just let's say this crown weighs let's just say ten pounds, Okay,
Speaker 1: So for the our for argument's sake, this crown weighed
Speaker 1: ten pounds. So what our community said, well, what if
Speaker 1: I get ten pounds of gold, and then I use
Speaker 1: some way to determine the mass of that gold, and
Speaker 1: then I use that same measurement for the crown. If
Speaker 1: the measurements the same, then we can come to the
Speaker 1: inclusion that the gold that is gold in the crown.
Speaker 1: If the if it's different, then we can say that
Speaker 1: maybe there's a different material in here. So what he
Speaker 1: did was he took a bath. Yes he did. So
Speaker 1: this all has to do with the displacement of water
Speaker 1: by putting the the And again we're just using this
Speaker 1: this measurement out of for for simplicity's sake. Putting ten
Speaker 1: pounds of gold in the bath, he sees how much
Speaker 1: water is displaced, how far that water is displaced in
Speaker 1: the bath, and then putting the crown in there, he
Speaker 1: can see how much water is displaced from there, and
Speaker 1: the the amount is different than he knows that the
Speaker 1: two materials are not the same. And supposedly he became
Speaker 1: so excited by this discovery that he ran out of
Speaker 1: his home. Starkers, that's not a joke. That's part of
Speaker 1: the legend. Know that that part is not what's cracking
Speaker 1: up Starkers. He was naked as a blue jay down
Speaker 1: the road. I'm turning into my uh my kin folk here.
Speaker 1: Um so anyway, yeah, completely nude, running down the street
Speaker 1: and screams out Eureka, which means I have found it.
Speaker 1: Also is a quirky uh dramatic comedy on the Sci
Speaker 1: Fi Network, Yes it is, anyway, so Eureka. That's that's
Speaker 1: where we get that. When when you have someone who
Speaker 1: makes a discovering screams at Eureka, they are essentially paying
Speaker 1: homage to our comedes. Which again, since this is a
Speaker 1: potentially apocryphal story, we might just be paying homage to
Speaker 1: a legend. Well, apparently that the bathtub part is what's
Speaker 1: probably apocryphal, but the crown part apparently is true. Um,
Speaker 1: they do. They do seem to feel, or at least
Speaker 1: Britannica does seems to feel that that that he was
Speaker 1: asked to determine whether or not the crown was actually
Speaker 1: gold apparently really did happen. Yeah, And and then you know,
Speaker 1: you would want somebody like Archimedes to do this because
Speaker 1: he was thinking scientifically in this case, and the reason
Speaker 1: you might say, well, why don't they just scratched the
Speaker 1: crown and see if they're silver under bite it like
Speaker 1: your coin. Right. Well, the problem here was that the
Speaker 1: crown was considered to be almost a holy relic. It
Speaker 1: was because you're the kings of the Greeks were they
Speaker 1: would trace their lineage back to gods, and so you
Speaker 1: couldn't destroy the crown in any way because that was
Speaker 1: an affront to the gods. So he had to find
Speaker 1: a non destructive way to test this without, you know,
Speaker 1: without actually causing any sort of damage to the crown,
Speaker 1: which makes it way more difficult. Ha, there's just Jonathan
Speaker 1: from two thousand and forty seven, yep, still doing them reruns,
Speaker 1: just here to tell you. In order for them to
Speaker 1: keep me around here, I got to introduce you to
Speaker 1: some of our sponsors, so uh, enjoy. We have another
Speaker 1: object that is attributed to Archimedes, although it's very possible
Speaker 1: that it actually predates his lifetime and it's just that
Speaker 1: he observed it and then was able to apply it elsewhere,
Speaker 1: which is the Archimedes screw. Yes, you know, well, how
Speaker 1: could it not be archimedes invention? It has his name
Speaker 1: right there in the name. Well, yeah, McDonald's, isn't named
Speaker 1: for somebody named McDonald, so you know there's a name.
Speaker 1: A name is is a tricky thing sometimes, but yes,
Speaker 1: he did. He did observe the principle that uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the hydrostatic principle using using the screw to raise water,
Speaker 1: which sounds counterintuitive at first until you realize how this
Speaker 1: is implemented. It's actually a screw that is, in general,
Speaker 1: the screw is encased in a two and then you
Speaker 1: lay it in a at an angle whereof you know,
Speaker 1: one end is raised at the top and the other
Speaker 1: end goes into the water. So you've got one end
Speaker 1: that that descends into the water and you have one
Speaker 1: end that's above the water level. You start turning that
Speaker 1: screw and what does is it scoops the water and
Speaker 1: the water travels up the screw just because of the
Speaker 1: principle of the screw as you turn it within this tube.
Speaker 1: Now there's you know, you might have some leakage issues
Speaker 1: where some of the water leaks back down to the
Speaker 1: next level down, but as as soon as you start
Speaker 1: turning that screw with a nice clip, eventually the water
Speaker 1: starts coming to the surface and the the speed that
Speaker 1: you turn the screw will counteract the leaking problem. And
Speaker 1: since it's just leaking to the next level down, it
Speaker 1: essentially becomes a non issue once you get to a
Speaker 1: certain speed and you can actually lift water out of
Speaker 1: out of a body of water that way. And this
Speaker 1: was often used in Archimedes time to pull water from
Speaker 1: say a lake and put it into an irrigation system.
Speaker 1: The Greeks and Romans were both very big on irrigation. Yes, indeed, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: actually that reminds me of there's an infant toy that
Speaker 1: has three or four little plastic balls and there's a
Speaker 1: screw inside, and if you push down and it's encased
Speaker 1: as you said, and not in a tube, it's actually
Speaker 1: sort of a it's not conical, but it does get
Speaker 1: narrower at the top than it is at the bottom.
Speaker 1: And when you press down on the plunger in the center,
Speaker 1: it makes the screw turn and the faster you push it,
Speaker 1: the higher the balls climb up the screw until you
Speaker 1: stop and then they know spin back down. I mean
Speaker 1: there's you know, not hydro static, there's no water, and
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's the same kind of thing, and you
Speaker 1: can sort of if you've seen that, that's you can
Speaker 1: sort of imagine that because it's you don't often see
Speaker 1: an Archimedes screw in practice, although you you can see
Speaker 1: them in practice if you were to go to certain
Speaker 1: hydro electric plants, they would be used in practice in
Speaker 1: reverse because then what you do is you you turn
Speaker 1: the If you happen to pour water on the top
Speaker 1: of the screw, it will make the screw turn. So
Speaker 1: you know, turning the screw will bring water to the top.
Speaker 1: But if you pour water on the top of the screw,
Speaker 1: it makes the screw turn, so it's the reverse action. Well,
Speaker 1: that means if you are able to position the screw
Speaker 1: so that a flow of water is constant on the
Speaker 1: top of it, then the screw will keep turning. You
Speaker 1: can make that screw to work. You can have that screw,
Speaker 1: uh use, you can use it to drive a generator,
Speaker 1: an electric generator, and thus you can create electricity from water.
Speaker 1: That's just one way. I mean there are turbines as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not the only method of of using
Speaker 1: water to drive an electric generator, but it is one way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was actually thinking of the Tesla turbine when you
Speaker 1: mentioned that um which is also a fascinating thing. We
Speaker 1: have an article on the website about that. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, it's not using the same exact principle,
Speaker 1: but it's also a way of using water or to
Speaker 1: uh to turn a turbine. That's not you know, something
Speaker 1: what I would think of was typical. But anyway, I digress,
Speaker 1: And we again we should point out, I mean, we've
Speaker 1: mentioned it a couple of times, but it bears repeating
Speaker 1: that the the actual Archimedes screw. There are at least
Speaker 1: some indications that this was being used in Egypt, UH,
Speaker 1: well before Archimedes ever had his name attached to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: completely by chance. UM. A few months ago, I was
Speaker 1: reading the UH the Biography of Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff.
Speaker 1: It's very popular there for a while, UM, and I
Speaker 1: hadn't really read a lot about ancient Egypt. But he
Speaker 1: Archimedes was actually in contact with UH some of the
Speaker 1: scientists in Alexandria, which at that time Alexandria and Egypt
Speaker 1: was probably the world center of learning, or at least
Speaker 1: one of the top UH centers of scholarship, you know,
Speaker 1: and he apparently was was in contact with them and
Speaker 1: had spent some time in Egypt before he went to Syracuse.
Speaker 1: Uh so it is not at all unlikely, um that
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have you know that that he would have
Speaker 1: had contact with those uh those scientists over there and
Speaker 1: gotten some some cool ideas, you know. And he also
Speaker 1: was attributed with the creation of a game. Really yeah,
Speaker 1: did you hear about stonemacheon or stomachion. I have heard
Speaker 1: of it, but I didn't realize this was this was
Speaker 1: related to our comedies. It's attributed to him. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a game that you play with these different shapes.
Speaker 1: It's almost like having a puzzle in a way, like
Speaker 1: these shapes if you if you put them all together
Speaker 1: in one way, it will create essentially a square. But
Speaker 1: the idea is to use those shapes to create other
Speaker 1: recognizable shapes. And it's really an exercise in creativity, like
Speaker 1: seeing seeing the potential of geometry to build um shapes
Speaker 1: that are more organic, so things like you use them
Speaker 1: to build a tree or the example I saw was
Speaker 1: an elephant um, which is kind of it's just kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. Is the idea that you have to use
Speaker 1: all the shapes in the group to create a recognizable object,
Speaker 1: an interesting object. And uh so that's also attributed to Archimedes.
Speaker 1: But again, this is another one of those attributions that
Speaker 1: we can't be completely certain is accurate. It's just one
Speaker 1: of those. Another another interesting thing of something that Archimedes
Speaker 1: may have had a hand in. Um, so shapes actually, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: looking for something, darn it? All right? Hang on, well,
Speaker 1: well you look and then we will pick up. All right,
Speaker 1: speaking of shapes, Um, you know he was, he was
Speaker 1: involved with many. He published a lot of his work,
Speaker 1: and there there is an indication that he may have
Speaker 1: had other work that he either didn't publish or that
Speaker 1: was later lost. Um. Again, there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: time that has passed now since he is he has
Speaker 1: left us. But um, one of the things we do
Speaker 1: know that he was fascinated with shapes. Um. He was
Speaker 1: able to, uh to figure out the surface area of
Speaker 1: a spear fear of radius R. You remember this back
Speaker 1: from your mathematics classes. I have a vague memory of it. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: S equals for pie r squared. Yeah, and the volume
Speaker 1: is two thirds of the cylinder in which it is inscribed.
Speaker 1: V equals four thirds pie r cubed. I have not
Speaker 1: had to know those those formula and so long, but
Speaker 1: they came back to me as soon as I saw that,
Speaker 1: and apparently, uh, he was so excited about this that
Speaker 1: this is actually, uh what his tomb was marked with. Yes,
Speaker 1: Marcus Salius Cicero owned his tomb which had been overgrown
Speaker 1: with uh uh greenery, let's say, and um, probably about
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty years or so after he died,
Speaker 1: and found that his uh, his tomb had been inscribed
Speaker 1: with a a sphere or had been marked with a
Speaker 1: sphere inscribed in a cylinder. And that's uh, I just
Speaker 1: think that's fascinating. I mean, going back to what I
Speaker 1: learned about geometry and um uh calculus, I think of
Speaker 1: people who came much later than that, but you know,
Speaker 1: in general, but Archimedes really had a huge influence on
Speaker 1: many many other people. Of course, his writings were known
Speaker 1: to uh, to the Arabic world. A lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of scientists and mathematicians from that era in in
Speaker 1: later centuries were able to take his work and build
Speaker 1: upon it. Um, and it's just uh, it's just cool stuff.
Speaker 1: He also did a lot with with mathematics as it was,
Speaker 1: you know, working on place value systems UM, and lots
Speaker 1: and lots of different things he wasn't he wasn't. Uh
Speaker 1: he was, I would say, Polly mathic. Yes, you know
Speaker 1: somebody who is is um well has has knowledge in
Speaker 1: multiple areas, very knowledgeable about a variety of mathematical and
Speaker 1: science topics, and we'll probably talk about other individuals who
Speaker 1: fall into that category as well. Hi, it's Johnathan of
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen. Again, I don't know who that old
Speaker 1: man was who came in here, but I hope you
Speaker 1: guys enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff. It was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun for us to research and do
Speaker 1: something a little different from what we had been doing
Speaker 1: in the past, and I look forward to doing more
Speaker 1: of those in the future. In fact, I have plans
Speaker 1: to do one about Leonardo da Vinci, a true genius
Speaker 1: of the Renaissance who has a lot of interesting stories,
Speaker 1: some apocryphal about him, and I hope to do an
Speaker 1: episode about that in the near future. But if you
Speaker 1: guys have any suggestions for topics I should cover on
Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, send them my way. The
Speaker 1: email address for the show is tech Stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or draw me a line on
Speaker 1: Facebook or Twitter. The handle of both of those is
Speaker 1: tex stuff hs W. You know, back in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: we didn't have a merchandise store, but we have one today.
Speaker 1: Then you can visit it. It's t public dot com
Speaker 1: slash tech stuff. Every purchase you make supports the show
Speaker 1: and we thank you for it. Go check that out
Speaker 1: and don't forget to follow us on Instagram. And that's
Speaker 1: it for me. I'll talk to you again really soon
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics, because
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com