Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Aloha and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and a lot of all things tech. And
Speaker 1: as you listen to this, I am sipping on a
Speaker 1: Virgin my tai and Honolulu, Hawaii, enjoying a week of vacation.
Speaker 1: But uh, in order to take that vacation, it meant
Speaker 1: that I had to cut some stuff short, including my
Speaker 1: research and writing of new episodes. So today we're actually
Speaker 1: going to listen to a tech Stuff classic episode. This
Speaker 1: classic episode is a true oldie but goody originally published
Speaker 1: back on June two thousand eleven. It features my original
Speaker 1: co host, Chris Palette, the voice of tech Stuff back
Speaker 1: in those days. And the episode is titled Eureka ar Comedes.
Speaker 1: And so this episode is all about the wonderful philosopher
Speaker 1: inventor Archimedes and what he did and maybe didn't do.
Speaker 1: Let's listen in we are going to concentrate on a genius,
Speaker 1: mathematical genius and inventor, one of the one of the greats. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: we are. And in the past we have talked about
Speaker 1: many fascinating people in tech. Uh, most of whom lived
Speaker 1: in the twenty and twenty one centuries. Today, we're going
Speaker 1: back a bit farther, Yeah, to the point of of
Speaker 1: two seven BC would be the the year that this
Speaker 1: 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: be an understatement. Oh yes, one of the fathers of calculus,
Speaker 1: not not the calculus that we used today, but precursor again. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: we've talked about it a lot in in the past
Speaker 1: two We've talked about the principle of simultaneous discovery, where
Speaker 1: people 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 new 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 Archimedes really
Speaker 1: was interested in the relationship of pulleys leavers and how
Speaker 1: they could be used to do work, and he spent
Speaker 1: quite a bit of time perfecting that, so much so
Speaker 1: that there are certain inventions that are are associated with
Speaker 1: him that are related in some form to simple machines,
Speaker 1: although not all of those inventions are necessarily straight from
Speaker 1: uh from archimedes brain. But we're gonna talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about some of the things that he did do,
Speaker 1: and then some of the things that are attributed to
Speaker 1: him that perhaps he did not do or perhaps just
Speaker 1: didn't work. There's one in Petaler. That's pretty famous due
Speaker 1: to a MythBusters episode that we'll get to. It's one
Speaker 1: of my favorites actually. Now Archimedes Archimedes, his dad was
Speaker 1: an astronomer, so he was growing up and he was
Speaker 1: exposed to the sciences. Um, he was probably taught by
Speaker 1: followers of you lid 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 some confusion about exactly when he died.
Speaker 1: It was sometime around two dred twelve or two hundred
Speaker 1: eleven b C. He was born in two eight seven
Speaker 1: b C. Remember we count backwards right, probably confused the
Speaker 1: heck out of them at the time. What are we
Speaker 1: coming down to? So yeah, so, so he died around
Speaker 1: 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 was an independent Greek city state before
Speaker 1: it was you know, physically uprooted and moved to New York. Yes, no, yes,
Speaker 1: not exactly what happened. Um Now, now the original original
Speaker 1: Syracuse so so in the Romans were in a war
Speaker 1: with It was a Roman Carthin Carthaginian war. Says, Carthage
Speaker 1: and Rome are in a war with each other. In
Speaker 1: Syracuse got pulled into the middle of that, despite attempts
Speaker 1: to kind of, sort of not do that, but various
Speaker 1: rulers of Syracuse ended up siding with either Rome or
Speaker 1: Carthage during the the the whole conflict, and at one
Speaker 1: point in the war, Rome besieged Syracuse and during the attack,
Speaker 1: a Roman soldier came upon Archimedes, and although there were
Speaker 1: specific orders to spare the life of Archimedes, the Roman
Speaker 1: soldier killed him, apparently not knowing the identity of the
Speaker 1: man he put to the sword. So Archimedes was. He
Speaker 1: was valued by both sides. He was recognized as a genius,
Speaker 1: and neither side wanted this genius to be destroyed. But
Speaker 1: as an unfortunate side effect of war, sometimes accidents happened.
Speaker 1: Now why was why did people consider him a genius? Well,
Speaker 1: one was that he was making incredible contributions to mathematics.
Speaker 1: He had found really interesting relationships between things like the
Speaker 1: volume of the sphere and the surface area of cylinders,
Speaker 1: and found out interesting ways to to kind of explain
Speaker 1: those relationships, including a very close approximation of pie. Um pie.
Speaker 1: We've lost him, haven't had breakfast yet. Um. So he
Speaker 1: was definitely valued for his intelligence, but beyond that, he
Speaker 1: also was this great inventor. In fact, during the war,
Speaker 1: during the siege on Syracuse, he came up with an
Speaker 1: invention known as the iron hand that played a big
Speaker 1: part in the defense of the city. Did you come
Speaker 1: across the iron hand? Actually, I did not come across
Speaker 1: the iron hand. This is different from the iron fist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess the one is used for defense. The other
Speaker 1: one you rule with that. It was also sometimes called
Speaker 1: our media's claw. Um. It's a it's a brilliant, brilliant
Speaker 1: defense mechanism for that time. It would not work today.
Speaker 1: But here's what here's what it was. So Syracuse was
Speaker 1: um right up against the ocean, like essentially there was
Speaker 1: you know, a slight cliff, and then you had a
Speaker 1: city wall that that was I think twenty seven kilometers
Speaker 1: 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 Syracuse came to our communes and said,
Speaker 1: I need a way to protect us while from these
Speaker 1: attacks from the from the ocean. So what our communees
Speaker 1: came up with was an enormous lever that you would
Speaker 1: mount on the sides of the city walls. Are actually
Speaker 1: on the top of the city walls. So you have
Speaker 1: this huge lever that that extends out over the ocean. Okay,
Speaker 1: from the end of the lever, you have a rope
Speaker 1: that drops down and on the end of the rope
Speaker 1: is a grappling hook. Now on the other end, the
Speaker 1: short end of the lever, you put huge lead weights
Speaker 1: and you first put them near the pivot point so
Speaker 1: that the weight of the long part of the lever
Speaker 1: keeps it level. All right. What you try to do
Speaker 1: is you try and catch the bow of a ship,
Speaker 1: a Roman ship with that grappling hook. Once you do,
Speaker 1: you slide those weights back from the the the fulcrum
Speaker 1: there to the very end of the short arm of
Speaker 1: the lever. Now that weight is enough to push that
Speaker 1: end of the lever down, meaning the long arm of
Speaker 1: the lever goes up. That's the arm that, by the way,
Speaker 1: is attached to the rope and the grappling hook. So
Speaker 1: you literally pull the end of the Roman ship out
Speaker 1: of the water. You then use the lever to shake
Speaker 1: the Roman ship and eventually the grappling hook breaks off
Speaker 1: of it, making the Roman ship fall again, either smashing
Speaker 1: against the water or the rocks on the base of
Speaker 1: the cliffs. That's brilliant, but extremely complicated. It seems like
Speaker 1: trying to to build the leaver. Yeah, however, was incredibly effective. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so effective that Rome abandoned their sea based attacks.
Speaker 1: They instead of instead of attacking Syracuse by see, what
Speaker 1: they did was they set up a blockade further out
Speaker 1: in the ocean where they're not going to get hit
Speaker 1: by a grappling hook from the shore, and then they
Speaker 1: ended up attacking by land and eventually sacked Syracuse. So
Speaker 1: while the victory was a a a good one, I
Speaker 1: mean it was, it was definitely a lauded victory, but
Speaker 1: it was short lived because all they did was they
Speaker 1: changed tactics, and unfortunately the the iron hand was not
Speaker 1: as good at defending against land based attacks 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 ray.
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, to the sales or actual ships from a distance.
Speaker 1: The idea being that he designed a device that would
Speaker 1: reflect and concentrate light from the sun and direct it
Speaker 1: at ships, and it would be so intense that it
Speaker 1: would be hot enough to to set fire to at
Speaker 1: least the sales of the ship, if not the actual
Speaker 1: ships themselves. Uh and and and at least some of
Speaker 1: the reports, it was said that he used shields and
Speaker 1: he just polished the surface of the metal shields and
Speaker 1: arrayed them in a in a shape that would direct
Speaker 1: the light kind of very concentrated way. So you have
Speaker 1: all these different shields that are tilted just so so
Speaker 1: that the light that they reflect all hits the same spot,
Speaker 1: sort of like the the devices that you used to
Speaker 1: cook a hot dog or something like that, that you
Speaker 1: used to use a camp. You know, you have your
Speaker 1: your mirror and you stick your food there, and you
Speaker 1: know the sunlight reflects off the inside of the mirror
Speaker 1: and except much much larger and stuff I used to fire. Yeah. Anyway, No,
Speaker 1: that that actually isn't so far fetched in a way.
Speaker 1: I mean, he really was interested in catoptrics, which I
Speaker 1: didn't know was a word, So I'm trying to use
Speaker 1: it and build it into my vocabulary that I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is, so please tell me. Yes, Well,
Speaker 1: I actually got that word from Britannica's profile on Archimedes. Um.
Speaker 1: It is 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 they set out a challenge to various
Speaker 1: groups to try and build UM a working ar Comedes
Speaker 1: death ray, and they found some success, something where it
Speaker 1: was warm enough where it could in theory set fire
Speaker 1: to maybe the sales, but it would it took time,
Speaker 1: and you know, you had to worry about it being
Speaker 1: the right time of day for you to be able
Speaker 1: to do this, and it would really depend on the
Speaker 1: ship being very uh well complicit in the burning process,
Speaker 1: in the sense of if the ship's moving around a lot,
Speaker 1: then you have to be able to move the race
Speaker 1: so that it stays on the same general area in
Speaker 1: order to keep increasing that temperature until it reaches the
Speaker 1: burning point. And if the ship's moving, then you may
Speaker 1: not be able to train in the ray on that
Speaker 1: on that moving target fast enough to be able to
Speaker 1: UM to actually get the temperature hot enough to for
Speaker 1: stuff to burn. So it's even if it were an
Speaker 1: actual weapon, it was not necessarily an effective one, not
Speaker 1: like the not like the the the lever that he
Speaker 1: had designed, which was demonstrably effective, effective enough to make
Speaker 1: the Romans change their tactics. Now, there are also other
Speaker 1: interesting inventions that we attribute to our commutees one of
Speaker 1: which is uh that that he probably did make were planetariums.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, they were also called spheres at the time,
Speaker 1: the Archimedes spears, and it was if you don't know
Speaker 1: what a planetarium is, a planetarium is essentially a geocentric
Speaker 1: model of what the h the stars and position of
Speaker 1: planets in the Sun and the moon, what what it
Speaker 1: looks like from the perspective of Earth. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a it's an earth based view of the the galaxies
Speaker 1: around us, the universe essentially. And so Archimedes had apparently
Speaker 1: built one of these possibly that used interesting little gears
Speaker 1: to mimic the motion of the planets and stars and
Speaker 1: constellations to keep everything aligned properly and making the move
Speaker 1: the way they actually do through the sky. And uh,
Speaker 1: he built a couple of these apparently, although both of
Speaker 1: them have been lost. There were other devices that have
Speaker 1: been recovered since then from shipwrecks and things like that
Speaker 1: that may either be an actual example of the spheres
Speaker 1: that Archimedes himself built, or maybe built on the same
Speaker 1: principles that Archimedes used when building his. But that's that's
Speaker 1: one of the things where we have we've heard the
Speaker 1: record of him building these things, and he certainly had
Speaker 1: the intelligence necessary to be able to design such a thing,
Speaker 1: we 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 along 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 principles 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. Ile
Speaker 1: Um and they were the kinds of things too that
Speaker 1: stood out. People like Plutarch the um you know, who
Speaker 1: wrote 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 pull
Speaker 1: this out. You know, Chris has a lot more to
Speaker 1: say about Archimedes, but honestly it's all Greek to me.
Speaker 1: So we're going to take a quick break. I'd like
Speaker 1: to talk about another real quick legendary Archimedes moment. Okay, um,
Speaker 1: this would be another great quote. Doesn't have to do
Speaker 1: with the bathtub, Yes it does. It has to do
Speaker 1: with the bathtub. So this is again a possibly apocryphal story.
Speaker 1: So in other words, this this may not be true.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think a lot of historians put this
Speaker 1: in the realm of legend for for many reasons, one
Speaker 1: of which is that the solution Archimedes came up with
Speaker 1: was actually not as not as difficult to to get
Speaker 1: to as you would imagine. So in other words, it
Speaker 1: seems like it's too easy an answer for Archimedes is
Speaker 1: almost the argument here. But the the situation was that
Speaker 1: you had the King of Syracuse who had commissioned a
Speaker 1: a golden crown, and this golden crown was made, but
Speaker 1: the king was suspicious of the golden crown. He thought
Speaker 1: that perhaps the person who made it actually used silver
Speaker 1: to make the crown, and then coded it with gold
Speaker 1: in order to to cheat the king out of money,
Speaker 1: essentially because silver was less precious than gold, and therefore
Speaker 1: by using gold silver in the crown, he could make
Speaker 1: it for for less money than it would cost him
Speaker 1: to gather 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, right, the gold
Speaker 1: would weigh more. Yes, So in order to make the
Speaker 1: cube's weigh the same, you would have to have a
Speaker 1: bigger cube of silver, right. So that was that was
Speaker 1: what Archimedes came up with. He came up with this
Speaker 1: idea of well, if I use the amount of gold
Speaker 1: that it takes to create the weight of this crown,
Speaker 1: just let's say this crown weighs let's just say ten pounds, Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So for the argument's sake, this crown weighed ten pounds.
Speaker 1: So what our community said, well, what if I get
Speaker 1: ten pounds of gold, and then I use some way
Speaker 1: to determine the mass of that gold, and then I
Speaker 1: use that same measurement for the crown. If the measurements
Speaker 1: the same, then we can come to the conclusion that
Speaker 1: the gold that is gold in the crown. If the
Speaker 1: if it's different, then we can say that maybe there's
Speaker 1: a different material in here. So what he did was
Speaker 1: he took a bath. Yes he did. So this all
Speaker 1: has to do with the displacement of water by putting
Speaker 1: the the And again we're just using this this measurement
Speaker 1: out of for for simplicity's sake, putting ten pounds of
Speaker 1: gold in the bath, he sees how much water is displaced,
Speaker 1: how far that water is displaced in the bath, and
Speaker 1: then putting the crown in there, he can see how
Speaker 1: much water is displaced from there, and the the amount
Speaker 1: is different than he knows that the two materials are
Speaker 1: not the same. And supposedly he became so excited by
Speaker 1: this discovery that he ran out of his home. Starkers,
Speaker 1: that's not a joke. That's part of the legend. Know
Speaker 1: that that part is not what's cracking up starkers nick.
Speaker 1: He was naked as a blue jay running down the
Speaker 1: road turning into my uh my kin folk here. Um
Speaker 1: so anyway, yeah, completely nude, running down the street and
Speaker 1: screams out Eureka, which means I have found it also
Speaker 1: is a quirky dramatic comedy on the Sci Fi Network,
Speaker 1: Yes it is. Anyway, so Eureka. That's that's where we
Speaker 1: get that when when you have someone who makes a
Speaker 1: discovering screams at Eureka, they are essentially paying homage to
Speaker 1: our comedies. Which again, since this is a potentially apocryphal story,
Speaker 1: we might just be paying homage to a legend. Well,
Speaker 1: apparently that the bathtub part is what's probably apocryphal, but
Speaker 1: the crown part apparently is true. Um they do. They
Speaker 1: do seem to feel, or at least Britannic Ads seems
Speaker 1: to feel that that that he was asked to determine
Speaker 1: whether or not the crown is actually gold apparently really
Speaker 1: did happen. Yeah, And you know you would want somebody
Speaker 1: like Archimedes to do this because he was thinking scientifically
Speaker 1: in this case, and the reason you might say, well,
Speaker 1: why don't they just scratched the crown and see if
Speaker 1: they're silver and bite it like your coin. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: the problem here was that the crown was considered to
Speaker 1: be almost a holy relic. It was because the kings
Speaker 1: of the Greeks were they would trace their lineage back
Speaker 1: to gods, and so you couldn't destroy the crown in
Speaker 1: any way because that was an affront to the gods.
Speaker 1: So he had to find a non destructive way to
Speaker 1: test this without you know, without actually causing any sort
Speaker 1: of damage to the crown, which markes it way more difficult. Um.
Speaker 1: And then we have another object that is attributed to Archimedes,
Speaker 1: although it's very possible that it actually predates his lifetime
Speaker 1: and it's just that he observed it and then was
Speaker 1: able to apply it elsewhere, which is the Archimedes screw. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, well, how could it not be archimedes invention?
Speaker 1: It has his name right there in the name. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: McDonald's isn't named for somebody named McDonald, So you know
Speaker 1: there's a name. A name is is tricky thing sometimes,
Speaker 1: but yes, he did. He did observe the principle that
Speaker 1: you know, the hydrostatic principle using using the screw to
Speaker 1: raise water, which sounds counterintuitive at first until you realize
Speaker 1: how this is implemented. It's actually a screw that is,
Speaker 1: in general, the screw is encased in a tube and
Speaker 1: then you lay it in a at an angle whereof
Speaker 1: you know, one end is raised at the top and
Speaker 1: the other end goes into the water. So you've got
Speaker 1: one end that that descends into the water and you
Speaker 1: have one end that's above the water level. You start
Speaker 1: turning that screw and what it does is it scoops
Speaker 1: the water and the water travels up the screw just
Speaker 1: because of the principle of the screw as you turn
Speaker 1: it within this tube. Now there's you know, you might
Speaker 1: have some leakage issues where some of the water leaks
Speaker 1: back down to the next level down. But as as
Speaker 1: soon as you start turning that screw with a nice clip,
Speaker 1: eventually the water starts coming to the surface, and the
Speaker 1: the speed that you turn the screw will counteract the
Speaker 1: leaking problem. And since it's just leaking to the next
Speaker 1: level down, it essentially becomes a non issue. Once you
Speaker 1: get to a certain speed and you can actually lift
Speaker 1: water out of out of a body of water that way,
Speaker 1: and this was often used in our Coimedes time to
Speaker 1: pull water from say a lake and put it into
Speaker 1: an irrigation system. The Greeks and Romans were both very
Speaker 1: big on irrigation. Yes, indeed, um, yeah, Actually, that reminds
Speaker 1: me of there's an infant toy that has three or
Speaker 1: four little plastic balls and there's a screw inside. And
Speaker 1: if you push down and it's encased, as you said,
Speaker 1: in it and not in a tube. It's actually sort
Speaker 1: of a it's not conical, but it does get narrower
Speaker 1: at the top than it is at the bottom. And
Speaker 1: 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 spin back down. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not hydro static. There's no water, and it's the same. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the same kind of thing, and you can sort
Speaker 1: of if you've seen that, that's you can sort of
Speaker 1: imagine that because it's you don't often see an Archimedes
Speaker 1: screw in practice, although you you can see them in practice.
Speaker 1: If you were to go to certain hydro electric plants.
Speaker 1: They would be used in practice in reverse because then
Speaker 1: what you do is you turn the If you happen
Speaker 1: to pour water on the top of the screw, it
Speaker 1: will make the screw turn. So you know, turning the
Speaker 1: screw will bring water to the top. But if you
Speaker 1: pour water on the top of the screw, it makes
Speaker 1: the screw turn, so it's the reverse action. Well, that
Speaker 1: means if you are able to position the screw so
Speaker 1: that a flow of water is constant the top of it,
Speaker 1: then the screw will keep turning. You can make that
Speaker 1: screw to work. You can have that screw uh use,
Speaker 1: you can use it to drive a generator, an electric generator,
Speaker 1: and thus you can create electricity from water. That's just
Speaker 1: one way. I mean there are turbines as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not the only method of using water to drive
Speaker 1: an electric generator, but it is one way. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was actually thinking of the Tesla turbine when you mentioned that,
Speaker 1: um which is also a fascinating thing. We have an
Speaker 1: article on the website about that. As a matter of fact. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not using the same exact principle, but it's also
Speaker 1: a way of using water or to uh to turn
Speaker 1: a turbine. That's not you know something what I would
Speaker 1: think of is typical. But anyway, I digress, and we
Speaker 1: again we should point out, I mean, we've mentioned it
Speaker 1: a couple of times, but it bears repeating that they
Speaker 1: the actual our commedees screw. There are at least some
Speaker 1: indications that this was being used in Egypt, uh, well
Speaker 1: before Our Comedies 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: our Comedies was actually in contact with uh, some of
Speaker 1: the scientists in Alexandria, which at that time Alexandria in
Speaker 1: Egypt was probably the world center of learning, or at
Speaker 1: least 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. Uh.
Speaker 1: So it is not at all unlikely, um that he
Speaker 1: wouldn't have you know that that he would have had
Speaker 1: contact with those uh, those scientists over there and gotten
Speaker 1: some some cool ideas, you know, and he also was
Speaker 1: attributed with the creation of a game. Really did you
Speaker 1: hear about stone machion or stomachion? I have heard of it,
Speaker 1: but I didn't realize this was this was related to Archimedes.
Speaker 1: It's attributed to him. It's a it's a game that
Speaker 1: you play with these different shapes. It's almost like having
Speaker 1: a puzzle in a way, like these shapes if you
Speaker 1: if you put them all together in one way, it
Speaker 1: will create essentially a square. But the idea is to
Speaker 1: use those shapes to create other recognizable shapes. And it's
Speaker 1: really an exercise and creativity like seeing seeing the potential
Speaker 1: of geometry to build um shapes that are more organic,
Speaker 1: so things like use them to build a tree or
Speaker 1: the example I saw was an elephant um, which is
Speaker 1: kind of it's just kind of interesting. Is the idea
Speaker 1: that you have to use all the shapes in the
Speaker 1: group to create a recognizable object, an interesting object. And
Speaker 1: uh so that's also attributed to Archimedes. But again this
Speaker 1: is another one of those attributions that we can't be
Speaker 1: completely serve is accurate. It's just one of those another
Speaker 1: another interesting thing of something that Archimedes may have had
Speaker 1: a hand in We'll be back with this classic episode
Speaker 1: about Archimedes in just a moment after this quick break.
Speaker 1: So shapes actually, yeah right, speaking of shapes. Um, you
Speaker 1: know he was he was involved with many He published
Speaker 1: a lot of his work, and there there is an
Speaker 1: indication that he may have had other work that he
Speaker 1: either didn't publish or that was later lost. Again, there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of time that has passed now since
Speaker 1: he is he has left us. But um, one of
Speaker 1: the things we do know that he was fascinated with shapes. Um.
Speaker 1: He was able to, uh, to figure out the surface
Speaker 1: area of a spear fear of radius R. You remember
Speaker 1: this back from your mathematics classes. I have a vague
Speaker 1: memory of it. Yeah, yeah, S equals for pie r squared. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the volume is two thirds of the cylinder in
Speaker 1: which it is inscribed V equals four thirds pie r cubed.
Speaker 1: I have not had to know those those formula and
Speaker 1: so long, but they came back to me as soon
Speaker 1: as I saw that. And apparently, uh, he was so
Speaker 1: excited about this that this is actually, uh, what his
Speaker 1: tomb was marked with. Yes, Marcus Tullius Cicero found his tomb,
Speaker 1: which had been overgrown with uh greenery, let's say, and
Speaker 1: um probably about a hundred and fifty years or so
Speaker 1: after he died, and found that his uh, his tomb
Speaker 1: had been inscribed with a a sphere or had been
Speaker 1: marked with a sphere inscribed in a cylinder. And that's uh.
Speaker 1: I just think that's fascinating. I mean, going back to
Speaker 1: what I learned about geometry and um uh calculus, I
Speaker 1: think of people who came much later than that, but
Speaker 1: you know, in general, but our comedes really had a
Speaker 1: huge influence on many many other people. Of course, his
Speaker 1: writings were known to UH to the Arabic world. A
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of scientists and mathematicians from that
Speaker 1: era in in later centuries were able to take his
Speaker 1: work and build upon it UM and it's just uh,
Speaker 1: it's just cool stuff. He also did a lot with
Speaker 1: with mathematics as it was, you know, working on place
Speaker 1: value systems UM. And there's lots and lots of different things.
Speaker 1: He wasn't He wasn't a he was I would say polymathic.
Speaker 1: You know, somebody who is his UM well, has has
Speaker 1: knowledge in multiple areas, very knowledgeable about a variety of
Speaker 1: mathematical and science topics, and we'll probably talk about other
Speaker 1: individuals who fall into that category as well. UM for example,
Speaker 1: I eventually we're gonna have to do a full profile
Speaker 1: on Leonardo da Vinci because but that's another famous poly
Speaker 1: math from from history that that you know, really was
Speaker 1: instrumental in the whole idea of of invention, you know,
Speaker 1: really embracing that part of genius. I hope you guys
Speaker 1: enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff. I will be
Speaker 1: back soon to record new episodes. Even as I sit
Speaker 1: out in the Hawaiian Sun. Trust me. I've already got
Speaker 1: notes set for an episode about TikTok, So keep an
Speaker 1: ear out because that will be coming soon. But until then,
Speaker 1: if you guys have suggestions for future episodes, maybe there's
Speaker 1: some tech topic, a company, a technology, a person in tech,
Speaker 1: a trend in tech that you really want to know
Speaker 1: more about, send me a message. A lot of you
Speaker 1: guys have been doing that, and it's awesome. Keep them coming.
Speaker 1: It makes it much easier for me to make sure
Speaker 1: you guys are getting what you want and I get
Speaker 1: to learn new stuff along the way, so everybody wins.
Speaker 1: You can reach out to me on Facebook or on Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle for both is tech stuff H s W
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.