WEBVTT - Rerun: Eureka! Archimedes! 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.680 How Stuff Works. Aloha and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.279 your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:19.680 Heart Radio and a lot of all things tech. And 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:23.000 as you listen to this, I am sipping on a 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:28.160 Virgin my tai and Honolulu, Hawaii, enjoying a week of vacation. 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:31.160 But uh, in order to take that vacation, it meant 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:33.920 that I had to cut some stuff short, including my 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:37.720 research and writing of new episodes. So today we're actually 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:41.599 going to listen to a tech Stuff classic episode. This 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:46.479 classic episode is a true oldie but goody originally published 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.480 back on June two thousand eleven. It features my original 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.800 co host, Chris Palette, the voice of tech Stuff back 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:58.360 in those days. And the episode is titled Eureka ar Comedes. 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.520 And so this episode is all about the wonderful philosopher 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:07.040 inventor Archimedes and what he did and maybe didn't do. 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:12.320 Let's listen in we are going to concentrate on a genius, 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:18.080 mathematical genius and inventor, one of the one of the greats. Really, yeah, 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:20.360 we are. And in the past we have talked about 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:25.520 many fascinating people in tech. Uh, most of whom lived 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:29.120 in the twenty and twenty one centuries. Today, we're going 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:32.679 back a bit farther, Yeah, to the point of of 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:37.640 two seven BC would be the the year that this 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:41.440 fellow was born. And we are talking about Archimedes, Yes, 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.720 the developer of the t R S A D. I'm kidding. 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.960 He's definitely a precursor to that. Um. Yes, we're not 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:53.440 talking Texas instruments, we're talking Greek ones. So Archimedes was 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.920 a mathematician, he was an astronomer, he was an engineer 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:01.040 and inventor. Very clever fellow. I guess that would probably 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:05.520 be an understatement. Oh yes, one of the fathers of calculus, 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:10.760 not not the calculus that we used today, but precursor again. Uh, well, 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:12.919 we've talked about it a lot in in the past 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:16.440 two We've talked about the principle of simultaneous discovery, where 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:18.799 people more than one person comes up with the same idea. 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:22.760 We've also talked about how people to have discoveries build 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.440 on other people's work. And Archimedes was definitely a founder 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:28.880 of many many of our technologies. Yeah, you would call 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.280 him the father of integral calculus, not not the same 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.639 thing as new calculus um, which is of course much 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.160 later on. So and and Chris has already made mention 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.960 of one of the famous quotes attributed to Archimedes, which is, 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:46.120 give me a place to stand, and I will move 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:50.160 the earth. And it sounds like something that a megalomaniacal 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:55.000 supervillain would say, But in this case, Archimedes is talking 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:58.400 about the discoveries he made and what we would call 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:03.880 basic mechanical structures now, things like pulleys and levers. In 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:08.040 that case, we're talking specifically about leavers. But Archimedes really 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:11.200 was interested in the relationship of pulleys leavers and how 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:14.360 they could be used to do work, and he spent 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.480 quite a bit of time perfecting that, so much so 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:20.960 that there are certain inventions that are are associated with 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.119 him that are related in some form to simple machines, 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:28.680 although not all of those inventions are necessarily straight from 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.840 uh from archimedes brain. But we're gonna talk a little 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.200 bit about some of the things that he did do, 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:37.200 and then some of the things that are attributed to 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:40.280 him that perhaps he did not do or perhaps just 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.920 didn't work. There's one in Petaler. That's pretty famous due 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:46.800 to a MythBusters episode that we'll get to. It's one 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:50.880 of my favorites actually. Now Archimedes Archimedes, his dad was 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.760 an astronomer, so he was growing up and he was 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:59.160 exposed to the sciences. Um, he was probably taught by 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:04.160 followers of you lid and uh he was. You know, 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.440 what we know of him is mostly from stuff that 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.360 was written well after his death, and because of that 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.240 we can't be completely certain about the details of his life. 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:17.159 In fact, there's still some confusion about exactly when he died. 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.119 It was sometime around two dred twelve or two hundred 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:22.359 eleven b C. He was born in two eight seven 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.919 b C. Remember we count backwards right, probably confused the 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:27.960 heck out of them at the time. What are we 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:33.279 coming down to? So yeah, so, so he died around 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.680 two twelve to eleven b C. And you might ask, well, 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:41.240 how did Archimedes die? How did Archimedes die? Violently? Unfortunately 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.359 it was during a sacking of Syracuse, which is that 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:49.000 was archimedes home. He lived in Syracuse in Sicily and 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.360 at the time was an independent Greek city state before 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:57.440 it was you know, physically uprooted and moved to New York. Yes, no, yes, 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:01.640 not exactly what happened. Um Now, now the original original 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:07.240 Syracuse so so in the Romans were in a war 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:11.760 with It was a Roman Carthin Carthaginian war. Says, Carthage 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:13.360 and Rome are in a war with each other. In 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.280 Syracuse got pulled into the middle of that, despite attempts 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:20.800 to kind of, sort of not do that, but various 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.520 rulers of Syracuse ended up siding with either Rome or 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:27.640 Carthage during the the the whole conflict, and at one 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:32.680 point in the war, Rome besieged Syracuse and during the attack, 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:37.159 a Roman soldier came upon Archimedes, and although there were 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:41.320 specific orders to spare the life of Archimedes, the Roman 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:45.120 soldier killed him, apparently not knowing the identity of the 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:50.359 man he put to the sword. So Archimedes was. He 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.520 was valued by both sides. He was recognized as a genius, 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.320 and neither side wanted this genius to be destroyed. But 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:00.760 as an unfortunate side effect of war, sometimes accidents happened. 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.680 Now why was why did people consider him a genius? Well, 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:08.280 one was that he was making incredible contributions to mathematics. 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:12.520 He had found really interesting relationships between things like the 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.720 volume of the sphere and the surface area of cylinders, 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:19.800 and found out interesting ways to to kind of explain 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:25.520 those relationships, including a very close approximation of pie. Um pie. 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:31.000 We've lost him, haven't had breakfast yet. Um. So he 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:35.320 was definitely valued for his intelligence, but beyond that, he 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:39.520 also was this great inventor. In fact, during the war, 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.640 during the siege on Syracuse, he came up with an 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.320 invention known as the iron hand that played a big 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.960 part in the defense of the city. Did you come 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.080 across the iron hand? Actually, I did not come across 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.479 the iron hand. This is different from the iron fist. Yeah, 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.080 I guess the one is used for defense. The other 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.800 one you rule with that. It was also sometimes called 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:04.720 our media's claw. Um. It's a it's a brilliant, brilliant 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.640 defense mechanism for that time. It would not work today. 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.560 But here's what here's what it was. So Syracuse was 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.360 um right up against the ocean, like essentially there was 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.400 you know, a slight cliff, and then you had a 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.760 city wall that that was I think twenty seven kilometers 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:26.120 long back when it stood. It doesn't stand anymore. Um, 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:29.160 but it you know, then you it was essentially right 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.000 up against the ocean. So one of the possible avenues 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:34.800 of attack was an attack by sea, which is what 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:39.679 one of the venues that Rome was interested in. So uh, 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:43.240 the leader of Syracuse came to our communes and said, 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.880 I need a way to protect us while from these 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.120 attacks from the from the ocean. So what our communees 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.600 came up with was an enormous lever that you would 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.880 mount on the sides of the city walls. Are actually 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:57.280 on the top of the city walls. So you have 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:00.960 this huge lever that that extends out over the ocean. Okay, 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:04.080 from the end of the lever, you have a rope 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:06.440 that drops down and on the end of the rope 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.320 is a grappling hook. Now on the other end, the 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:12.720 short end of the lever, you put huge lead weights 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.520 and you first put them near the pivot point so 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.000 that the weight of the long part of the lever 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:22.320 keeps it level. All right. What you try to do 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:24.480 is you try and catch the bow of a ship, 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.280 a Roman ship with that grappling hook. Once you do, 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.920 you slide those weights back from the the the fulcrum 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:34.480 there to the very end of the short arm of 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.199 the lever. Now that weight is enough to push that 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.520 end of the lever down, meaning the long arm of 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:42.120 the lever goes up. That's the arm that, by the way, 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:44.720 is attached to the rope and the grappling hook. So 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.640 you literally pull the end of the Roman ship out 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:52.000 of the water. You then use the lever to shake 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.800 the Roman ship and eventually the grappling hook breaks off 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:59.480 of it, making the Roman ship fall again, either smashing 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.000 against the water or the rocks on the base of 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.960 the cliffs. That's brilliant, but extremely complicated. It seems like 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:14.720 trying to to build the leaver. Yeah, however, was incredibly effective. Yeah, 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:19.200 it's so effective that Rome abandoned their sea based attacks. 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.360 They instead of instead of attacking Syracuse by see, what 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.600 they did was they set up a blockade further out 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:27.600 in the ocean where they're not going to get hit 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.600 by a grappling hook from the shore, and then they 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:35.360 ended up attacking by land and eventually sacked Syracuse. So 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.480 while the victory was a a a good one, I 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:44.040 mean it was, it was definitely a lauded victory, but 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.240 it was short lived because all they did was they 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:54.079 changed tactics, and unfortunately the the iron hand was not 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:58.719 as good at defending against land based attacks good at all. Now, 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:04.880 there were other theoretical weapons that some people say actually 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.920 were built and used against the Romans during this very 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.480 same siege. And uh, one of the one I was 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:15.319 talking about with MythBusters was the the Archimedes death ray. 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:17.600 Oh right, you know what I'm talking about here, right right, 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:21.600 How he theoretically was able to uh set fire to 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:25.160 the sales, to the sales or actual ships from a distance. 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:29.160 The idea being that he designed a device that would 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:34.120 reflect and concentrate light from the sun and direct it 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:36.199 at ships, and it would be so intense that it 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:38.440 would be hot enough to to set fire to at 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:40.640 least the sales of the ship, if not the actual 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:44.240 ships themselves. Uh and and and at least some of 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:49.440 the reports, it was said that he used shields and 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.720 he just polished the surface of the metal shields and 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.679 arrayed them in a in a shape that would direct 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.680 the light kind of very concentrated way. So you have 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.199 all these different shields that are tilted just so so 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.520 that the light that they reflect all hits the same spot, 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:08.560 sort of like the the devices that you used to 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.040 cook a hot dog or something like that, that you 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:13.040 used to use a camp. You know, you have your 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.000 your mirror and you stick your food there, and you 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.200 know the sunlight reflects off the inside of the mirror 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:25.959 and except much much larger and stuff I used to fire. Yeah. Anyway, No, 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.000 that that actually isn't so far fetched in a way. 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:33.160 I mean, he really was interested in catoptrics, which I 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:35.240 didn't know was a word, So I'm trying to use 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:37.640 it and build it into my vocabulary that I don't 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:39.880 know what it is, so please tell me. Yes, Well, 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:44.800 I actually got that word from Britannica's profile on Archimedes. Um. 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:49.360 It is the part of optics that works with the 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:53.880 reflection of light from mirrors from different types. They could 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.680 be flat or curved mirrors, but catoptrics is is that, 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.560 uh study, And he was particularly interested in it, So 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.000 it wasn't like it was out of character for him 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:08.360 to be interested in something like that. But apparently it 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:12.800 doesn't so much work well. On the MythBusters episode that 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:17.240 they made, um, the MythBusters used they they actually tried 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:19.800 to build one themselves and it didn't really work so well. 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.280 And then they they set out a challenge to various 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.640 groups to try and build UM a working ar Comedes 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.800 death ray, and they found some success, something where it 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:31.200 was warm enough where it could in theory set fire 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.520 to maybe the sales, but it would it took time, 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:36.520 and you know, you had to worry about it being 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:38.319 the right time of day for you to be able 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:40.920 to do this, and it would really depend on the 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:45.640 ship being very uh well complicit in the burning process, 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.360 in the sense of if the ship's moving around a lot, 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:50.600 then you have to be able to move the race 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:52.840 so that it stays on the same general area in 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:55.160 order to keep increasing that temperature until it reaches the 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:59.160 burning point. And if the ship's moving, then you may 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.360 not be able to train in the ray on that 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:06.000 on that moving target fast enough to be able to 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.840 UM to actually get the temperature hot enough to for 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:13.400 stuff to burn. So it's even if it were an 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.880 actual weapon, it was not necessarily an effective one, not 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:20.760 like the not like the the the lever that he 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:25.079 had designed, which was demonstrably effective, effective enough to make 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.960 the Romans change their tactics. Now, there are also other 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:33.960 interesting inventions that we attribute to our commutees one of 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:39.679 which is uh that that he probably did make were planetariums. 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:43.920 Oh yes, they were also called spheres at the time, 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:47.960 the Archimedes spears, and it was if you don't know 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.679 what a planetarium is, a planetarium is essentially a geocentric 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:56.880 model of what the h the stars and position of 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:58.760 planets in the Sun and the moon, what what it 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.360 looks like from the perspective of Earth. You know, it's 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:05.760 a it's an earth based view of the the galaxies 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:10.120 around us, the universe essentially. And so Archimedes had apparently 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:14.640 built one of these possibly that used interesting little gears 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:19.160 to mimic the motion of the planets and stars and 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:23.000 constellations to keep everything aligned properly and making the move 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:27.920 the way they actually do through the sky. And uh, 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.440 he built a couple of these apparently, although both of 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.120 them have been lost. There were other devices that have 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.800 been recovered since then from shipwrecks and things like that 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:43.040 that may either be an actual example of the spheres 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.360 that Archimedes himself built, or maybe built on the same 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:51.440 principles that Archimedes used when building his. But that's that's 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:53.360 one of the things where we have we've heard the 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.200 record of him building these things, and he certainly had 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.280 the intelligence necessary to be able to design such a thing, 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:04.240 we just don't have the physical proof of it. Um. Yeah, 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:07.520 there was a treatise that he apparently wrote called the 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:11.920 sand Reckoner that had to do with um astronomy and 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:16.920 his astronomical thought. He actually had had been able to 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:22.320 uh sort of using his tools of his time, he 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.960 was able to get an eye a reasonable idea of 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.600 the diameter of the sun, um, you know, through his 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:32.600 uh using instruments to observe this. And this is of 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:36.560 course along before people that we sort of associate with 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:42.600 um astronomy, you know, modern astronomy, people like Galileo UM. 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:45.120 You know. There he was really sort of in a 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:49.320 groundbreaking category in this regard, but all there were others 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:53.480 who who worked with these principles to um. You know, 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:57.560 his work went into uh several others as well, but UM, 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.200 I think it's sort of disappeared for a while. Ile 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.120 Um and they were the kinds of things too that 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:07.160 stood out. People like Plutarch the um you know, who 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.360 wrote quite a bit about the famous people of his time, 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:15.920 categorized archimedes work UM and he's you know, these things 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.840 were well enough documented that he was able to pull 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.040 this out. You know, Chris has a lot more to 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.440 say about Archimedes, but honestly it's all Greek to me. 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:32.880 So we're going to take a quick break. I'd like 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:37.920 to talk about another real quick legendary Archimedes moment. Okay, um, 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.120 this would be another great quote. Doesn't have to do 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:42.360 with the bathtub, Yes it does. It has to do 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:47.240 with the bathtub. So this is again a possibly apocryphal story. 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:49.880 So in other words, this this may not be true. 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.560 In fact, I think a lot of historians put this 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:56.440 in the realm of legend for for many reasons, one 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.840 of which is that the solution Archimedes came up with 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:06.240 was actually not as not as difficult to to get 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:08.639 to as you would imagine. So in other words, it 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:11.320 seems like it's too easy an answer for Archimedes is 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:14.920 almost the argument here. But the the situation was that 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:20.800 you had the King of Syracuse who had commissioned a 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:25.520 a golden crown, and this golden crown was made, but 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.280 the king was suspicious of the golden crown. He thought 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.760 that perhaps the person who made it actually used silver 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:36.000 to make the crown, and then coded it with gold 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.880 in order to to cheat the king out of money, 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:44.200 essentially because silver was less precious than gold, and therefore 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:48.520 by using gold silver in the crown, he could make 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:51.120 it for for less money than it would cost him 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:56.400 to gather all the materials, and thus have a higher profit. So, 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:58.560 how do you figure out if it weighs the right 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:03.680 amount for a crown of that general size? Um, how 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.600 do you figure out whether or not silver was used? Well, 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.320 silver doesn't weigh as much as gold does, so, in 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:11.200 other in other words, in order to make a silver 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.040 crown that would weigh the same amount as a gold crown, 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:18.600 you would have to add more silver. Right. So if 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:21.600 you had a cube of silver and a cube of 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.399 gold that were the exact same size, right, the gold 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:26.399 would weigh more. Yes, So in order to make the 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:28.639 cube's weigh the same, you would have to have a 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:32.800 bigger cube of silver, right. So that was that was 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:34.800 what Archimedes came up with. He came up with this 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:37.679 idea of well, if I use the amount of gold 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.440 that it takes to create the weight of this crown, 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.720 just let's say this crown weighs let's just say ten pounds, Okay, okay, 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.320 So for the argument's sake, this crown weighed ten pounds. 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:49.800 So what our community said, well, what if I get 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.840 ten pounds of gold, and then I use some way 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:57.679 to determine the mass of that gold, and then I 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.440 use that same measurement for the crown. If the measurements 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.600 the same, then we can come to the conclusion that 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.199 the gold that is gold in the crown. If the 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:08.040 if it's different, then we can say that maybe there's 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:10.760 a different material in here. So what he did was 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:15.600 he took a bath. Yes he did. So this all 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.879 has to do with the displacement of water by putting 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:22.680 the the And again we're just using this this measurement 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.639 out of for for simplicity's sake, putting ten pounds of 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:28.840 gold in the bath, he sees how much water is displaced, 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.919 how far that water is displaced in the bath, and 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.040 then putting the crown in there, he can see how 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:37.920 much water is displaced from there, and the the amount 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:40.560 is different than he knows that the two materials are 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:45.879 not the same. And supposedly he became so excited by 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:51.200 this discovery that he ran out of his home. Starkers, 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:55.560 that's not a joke. That's part of the legend. Know 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.920 that that part is not what's cracking up starkers nick. 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:03.760 He was naked as a blue jay running down the 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:07.520 road turning into my uh my kin folk here. Um 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.960 so anyway, yeah, completely nude, running down the street and 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:17.080 screams out Eureka, which means I have found it also 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:22.440 is a quirky dramatic comedy on the Sci Fi Network, 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.879 Yes it is. Anyway, so Eureka. That's that's where we 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:28.600 get that when when you have someone who makes a 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:33.320 discovering screams at Eureka, they are essentially paying homage to 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:38.600 our comedies. Which again, since this is a potentially apocryphal story, 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:42.040 we might just be paying homage to a legend. Well, 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:47.760 apparently that the bathtub part is what's probably apocryphal, but 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:51.960 the crown part apparently is true. Um they do. They 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:54.600 do seem to feel, or at least Britannic Ads seems 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.320 to feel that that that he was asked to determine 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:02.440 whether or not the crown is actually gold apparently really 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.399 did happen. Yeah, And you know you would want somebody 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:09.000 like Archimedes to do this because he was thinking scientifically 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:11.719 in this case, and the reason you might say, well, 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:14.919 why don't they just scratched the crown and see if 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.680 they're silver and bite it like your coin. Right, Well, 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.280 the problem here was that the crown was considered to 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:25.640 be almost a holy relic. It was because the kings 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:28.920 of the Greeks were they would trace their lineage back 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:33.399 to gods, and so you couldn't destroy the crown in 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.040 any way because that was an affront to the gods. 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:39.400 So he had to find a non destructive way to 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:42.640 test this without you know, without actually causing any sort 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:46.840 of damage to the crown, which markes it way more difficult. Um. 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.960 And then we have another object that is attributed to Archimedes, 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:55.919 although it's very possible that it actually predates his lifetime 0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:58.000 and it's just that he observed it and then was 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:01.560 able to apply it elsewhere, which is the Archimedes screw. Yes, 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:05.120 you know, well, how could it not be archimedes invention? 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:11.800 It has his name right there in the name. Well, yeah, 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:16.919 McDonald's isn't named for somebody named McDonald, So you know 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:20.240 there's a name. A name is is tricky thing sometimes, 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:24.400 but yes, he did. He did observe the principle that 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:28.639 you know, the hydrostatic principle using using the screw to 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:33.440 raise water, which sounds counterintuitive at first until you realize 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.439 how this is implemented. It's actually a screw that is, 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:40.000 in general, the screw is encased in a tube and 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:42.680 then you lay it in a at an angle whereof 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:44.520 you know, one end is raised at the top and 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.520 the other end goes into the water. So you've got 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:50.000 one end that that descends into the water and you 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:53.080 have one end that's above the water level. You start 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:55.160 turning that screw and what it does is it scoops 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:58.359 the water and the water travels up the screw just 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:00.960 because of the principle of the screw as you turn 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:04.800 it within this tube. Now there's you know, you might 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:07.240 have some leakage issues where some of the water leaks 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:09.080 back down to the next level down. But as as 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:11.840 soon as you start turning that screw with a nice clip, 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:14.920 eventually the water starts coming to the surface, and the 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:18.800 the speed that you turn the screw will counteract the 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:21.280 leaking problem. And since it's just leaking to the next 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:24.800 level down, it essentially becomes a non issue. Once you 0:23:24.920 --> 0:23:27.480 get to a certain speed and you can actually lift 0:23:27.520 --> 0:23:30.360 water out of out of a body of water that way, 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:33.159 and this was often used in our Coimedes time to 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:37.600 pull water from say a lake and put it into 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:40.840 an irrigation system. The Greeks and Romans were both very 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:45.320 big on irrigation. Yes, indeed, um, yeah, Actually, that reminds 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:49.800 me of there's an infant toy that has three or 0:23:49.840 --> 0:23:53.679 four little plastic balls and there's a screw inside. And 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:56.360 if you push down and it's encased, as you said, 0:23:56.400 --> 0:23:58.159 in it and not in a tube. It's actually sort 0:23:58.200 --> 0:24:01.919 of a it's not conical, but it does get narrower 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:03.639 at the top than it is at the bottom. And 0:24:03.680 --> 0:24:06.439 when you press down on the plunger in the center, 0:24:06.440 --> 0:24:09.000 it makes the screw turn and the faster you push it, 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:13.119