WEBVTT - Eureka! Archimedes! 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.960 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.920 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:17.920 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.360 Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:22.760 I'm an editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:25.520 across from me as usual, ready to move the Earth 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:30.000 is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. One is a genius, the 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:34.280 others insane. To prove their mousey worth, they'll overthrow the earth. 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:38.920 That was a particularly nice one. Thank you. I thought 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:40.960 you were gonna say one is the loneliest number, and 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:42.519 I'm just gonna say, what does that have to do 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:45.479 with our podcast? Now? We're going to talk about a genius. 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.880 Today we are going to concentrate on a genius, mathematical 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:54.760 genius and inventor, one of the one of the greats. Really, yeah, 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:56.880 we are. And in the past we have talked about 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:02.240 many fascinating people in tech, uh, most of whom lived 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:06.360 in the twenty one centuries. Today we're going back a 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:11.760 bit farther, Yeah, to the point of of two seven 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.679 b C would be the the year that this fellow 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:18.280 was born. And we are talking about Archimedes. Yes, the 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:21.440 developer of the T R S A D. I'm kidding, 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.640 he's definitely a precursor to that. Um. Yes, we're not 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:30.160 talking Texas instruments, we're talking Greek ones. So Archimedes was 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:33.640 a mathematician, he was an astronomer, he was an engineer 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:37.720 and inventor. Very clever fellow, I guess that would probably 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:42.240 an understatement. Oh, yes, one of the fathers of calculus. 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:47.480 Not not the calculus that we used today, but precursor again. Uh, well, 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:49.640 we've talked about it a lot in in the past 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.120 two We've talked about the principle of simultaneous discovery, where 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:55.520 people more than one person comes up with the same idea. 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:59.480 We've also talked about how people to have discoveries build 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:03.160 on other people's work. And Archimedes was definitely a founder 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:05.560 of many, many of our technologies. Yeah, you would call 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:09.000 him the father of integral calculus. Not not the same 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:13.320 thing as Newtonian calculus um, which is of course much 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:16.840 later on. So and and Chris has already made mention 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:20.640 of one of the famous quotes attributed to Archimedes, which is, 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:22.840 give me a place to stand, and I will move 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.880 the earth and it sounds like something that a megalomaniacal 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:31.720 supervillain would say. But in this case, Archimedes is talking 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.080 about the discoveries he made and what we would call 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:40.600 basic mechanical structures now, things like pulleys and levers. In 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:44.399 that case, we're talking specifically about leavers. But our Coimedes 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.640 really was interested in the relationship of pulleys leavers and 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:50.520 how they could be used to do work, and um, 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.720 he spent quite a bit of time perfecting that, so 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.600 much so that there are certain inventions that are are 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:59.799 associated with him that are related in some form to 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.919 simple machines, although not all of those inventions are necessarily 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:09.160 straight from uh, from archimedes brain. But we're gonna talk 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.280 a little bit about some of the things that he 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:13.240 did do, and then some of the things that are 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.320 attributed to him that perhaps he did not do or 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.960 perhaps just didn't work. There's one in particular that's pretty 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:22.600 famous due to a MythBusters episode that we'll get to. 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:27.160 It's one of my favorites, actually, Now, Archimedes. Archimedes his 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:31.280 dad was an astronomer, so he was growing up, he 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.680 was exposed to the sciences. Um, he was probably taught 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:40.760 by followers of Euclid, and uh he was. You know, 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:43.160 what we know of him is mostly from stuff that 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:46.080 was written well after his death, and because of that 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:49.920 we can't be completely certain about the details of his life. 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:53.840 In fact, there's still some confusion about exactly when he died. 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:56.840 It was sometime around two hundred twelve or two hundred 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.080 eleven b C. He was born in two eight seven 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:02.600 b C. Remember we count backwards right, probably confuse the 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:04.680 heck out of them at the time. What are we 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:09.680 coming down to? So, yeah, so and so he died 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.360 around two twelve to eleven b C. And you might ask, well, 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:17.920 how did Archimedes die? How did Archimedes die violently? Unfortunately, 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:22.039 it was during a sacking of Syracuse, which is that 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:25.720 was archimedes home. He lived in Syracuse, in Sicily and 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:27.960 at the time it was an independent Greek city state. 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.719 Before it it was, you know, physically uprooted and moved 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:37.000 to New York. Yes, no, yes, not how exactly what happened? No, no, no, 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:42.719 the original original Syracuse. So so in the Romans were 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:47.400 in a war with It was a Roman Carthin Carthaginian war, 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:49.840 says Carthage, and Rome are in a war with each 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:51.880 other in Syracuse got pulled into the middle of that, 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:56.039 despite attempts to kind of sort of not do that, 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:59.839 but various rulers of Syracuse ended up siding with either 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.880 Home or Carthage during the the the whole conflict, and 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.920 at one point in the war, Rome besieged Syracuse and 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:12.680 during the attack a Roman soldier came upon Archimedes, and 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:17.240 although there were specific orders to spare the life of Archimedes, 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.600 the Roman soldier killed him, apparently not knowing the identity 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:25.800 of the man he put to the sword. So Archimedes 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.400 was He was valued by both sides. He was recognized 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.200 as a genius, and neither side wanted this genius to 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:36.360 be destroyed. But as an unfortunate side effective war, sometimes 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:40.880 accidents happened. Now why was why did people consider him 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.360 a genius? Well, one was that he was making incredible 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:48.719 contributions to mathematics. He had found really interesting relationships between 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.239 things like the volume of the sphere and the surface 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:55.240 area of cylinders, and found out interesting ways to to 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.360 kind of explain those relationships, including a very close approximation 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:06.520 of pie um. Bye, we've lost him, haven't had breakfast? Yet. Um. 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:11.760 So he was definitely valued for his intelligence, but beyond that, 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:16.200 he also was this great inventor. In fact, during the war, 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.360 during the siege on Syracuse, he came up with an 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:23.039 invention known as the iron hand that played a big 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:25.680 part in the defense of the city. Did you come 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:27.760 across the iron hand? Actually I did not come across 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.200 the iron hand. This is different from the iron fist. Yeah, 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:33.760 I guess the one is used for defense. The other 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.480 one you rule with that. It was also sometimes called 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:42.720 Archimedes claw. Um, it's a it's a brilliant, brilliant defense 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.680 mechanism for that time. It would not work today. But 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:50.120 here's what here's what it was. So Syracuse was um, 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.760 right up against the ocean. Like essentially there was you know, 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:56.719 a slight cliff and then you had a city wall 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:00.160 that that was I think twenty seven kilometers long back 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.520 when it stood. It doesn't stand anymore, um, but it 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:06.240 you know, then you it was essentially right up against 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:09.159 the ocean. So one of the possible avenues of attack 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.040 was an attack by sea, which is what one of 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:16.960 the venues that Rome was interested in. So, uh, the 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.040 leader of Syracuse came to our communes and said, I 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.000 need a way to protect us while from these attacks 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.000 from the from the ocean. So what our communes came 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.640 up with was an enormous lever that you would mount 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:32.680 on the sides of the city walls. Are actually on 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:34.080 the top of the city walls. So you have this 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:37.680 huge lever that that extends out over the ocean. Okay, 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:40.800 from the end of the lever, you have a rope 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:43.160 that drops down, and on the end of the rope 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:46.000 is a grappling hook. Now on the other end, the 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:49.400 short end of the lever, you put huge lead weights 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:52.240 and you first put them near the pivot point so 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:54.680 that the weight of the long part of the lever 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:59.040 keeps it level. All right, What you try to do 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:01.200 is you try and catch the bow of a ship, 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.280 a Roman ship with that grappling hook. Once you do, 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:08.840 you slide those weights back from the the fulcrum there 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.520 to the very end of the short arm of the lever. 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.200 Now that weight is enough to push that end of 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:16.600 the lever down, meaning the long arm of the lever 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.040 goes up. That's the arm that, by the way, is 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.600 attached to the rope and the grappling hook. So you 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:25.520 literally pull the end of the Roman ship out of 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:29.040 the water. You then use the lever to shake the 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.880 Roman ship and eventually the grappling hook breaks off of it, 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.640 making the Roman ship fall again, either smashing against the 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:40.240 water or the rocks on the base of the cliffs. 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.600 That's brilliant, but extremely complicated. It seems like trying to 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:51.400 to build the lever. Yeah, however, was incredibly effective. Yeah, 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:56.720 so effective that Rome abandoned their sea based attacks. They 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.240 instead of instead of attacking Syracuse by see, what they 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.400 did was they set up a blockade further out in 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:04.440 the ocean where they're not going to get hit by 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.600 a grappling hook from the shore, and then they ended 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:13.120 up attacking by land and eventually sacked Syracuse. So while 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:17.280 the victory was a a a good one, I mean 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:21.720 it was, it was definitely a lauded victory, but it 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.319 was short lived because all they did was they changed 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:31.520 tactics and unfortunately the the iron hand was not as 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:35.440 good at defending against land based attacks good at all. Now, 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:41.560 there were other theoretical weapons that some people say actually 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:44.600 were built and used against the Romans during this very 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:48.160 same siege, and uh, one of the one I was 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.520 talking about with MythBusters was the the Archimedes death ray. 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:54.280 Oh right, you know what I'm talking about here, right right, 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.320 How he theoretically was able to uh set fire to 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.520 the sales, Yeah, to the same or actual ships from 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.280 a distance. The idea being that he designed a device 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:10.280 that would reflect and concentrate light from the sun and 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:12.720 direct it at ships, and it would be so intense 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:14.720 that it would be hot enough to to set fire 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:16.840 to at least the sales of the ship, if not 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:20.640 the actual ships themselves. Uh and and and at least 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:23.800 some of the reports it was uh said that he 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:27.680 used shields and he just polished the surface of the 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:31.680 metal shields and arrayed them in a in a shape 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.000 that would direct the light kind of very concentrated way. 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.600 So you have all these different shields that are tilted 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:41.040 just so so that the light that they reflect all 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:44.720 hits the same spot, sort of like the devices that 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.040 you used to cook a hot dog or something like 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:49.200 that that you used to use a camp. You know, 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.680 you have your your mirror and you stick your food there, 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:55.480 and you know, the sunlight reflects off the inside of 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:59.720 the mirror, and except much much larger and stuff I 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:04.120 use to fire, Yeah, anyway now that that actually isn't 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:06.800 so far fetched in a way. I mean, he really 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:11.240 was interested in catoptrics, which I didn't know was a word, 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:12.920 so I'm trying to use it and build it into 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.400 my vocabulary that I don't know what it is, so 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:17.720 please tell me, yes, Well, I actually got that word 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:22.880 from H. Britannica's profile on archimedes Um. It is the 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:26.680 the part of optics that works with the reflection of 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:31.000 light from mirrors from different types. They could be flat 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:35.480 or curved mirrors, but catoptrics is is that, uh study, 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:39.080 and he was particularly interested in it, so it wasn't 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.840 like it was out of character for him to be 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.760 interested in something like that. But apparently it doesn't so 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:50.520 much work well. On the MythBusters episode that they made um, 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.520 the MythBusters used they they actually tried to build one 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:56.800 themselves and it didn't really work so well. And then 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.679 they set out a challenge to various groups to try 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.199 and build old Um a working ur commedees death ray, 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:05.880 and they found some success, something where it was warm 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:08.319 enough where it could in theory set fire to maybe 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:12.040 the sales, but it would it took time, and you know, 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:13.760 you had to worry about it being the right time 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:15.440 of day for you to be able to do this, 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.080 And it would really depend on the ship being very 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:23.040 uh well complicit in the burning process, in the sense 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:25.760 of if the ship's moving around a lot, then you 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:27.680 have to be able to move the ray so that 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:29.840 it stays on the same general area in order to 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.440 keep increasing that temperature until it reaches the burning point. 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.120 And if the ship's moving, then you may not be 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.280 able to train the ray on that on that uh 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:43.480 moving target fast enough to be able to um to 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.280 actually get the temperature hot enough to for stuff to burn. 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:51.080 So it's even if it were an actual weapon, it 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:55.360 was not necessarily an effective one, not like the not 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.400 like the the the lever that he had designed, which 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.400 was to monsterly effective, effective enough to make the Romans 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:08.359 change their tactics. Now, there are also other interesting inventions 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.280 that we attribute to our commedies, one of which is 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:16.880 uh that that he probably did make were planetariums. Oh yes, 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:22.479 they were also called spheres at the time. The Archimedes spears, 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.680 and it was if you don't know what a planetarium is, 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:31.880 a planetarium is essentially a geocentric model of what the 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:34.360 h the stars and position of planets in the Sun 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:36.160 and the moon, what what it looks like from the 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:38.880 perspective of Earth. You know, it's a it's an earth 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:44.000 based view of the the galaxies around us, the universe essentially. 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:48.840 And so Archimedes had apparently built one of these possibly 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:53.480 that used interesting little gears to mimic the motion of 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:58.120 the planets and stars and constellations to keep everything aligned 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.000 properly and making the move the way they actually do 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.760 through the sky. And uh, he built a couple of 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:09.680 these apparently, although both of them have been lost. There 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:13.000 were other devices that have been recovered since then from 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:17.240 shipwrecks and things like that that may either be an 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:21.320 actual example of the spheres of Archimedes himself built or 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.920 maybe built on the same principles that Archimedes used when 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:28.920 building his But that's that's one of those things where 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.600 we have we've heard the record of him building these things, 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.840 and he certainly had the intelligence necessary to be able 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.240 to design such a thing, we just don't have the 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:42.200 physical proof of it. Um. Yeah, there was a treatise 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.480 that he apparently wrote called the sand Reckoner that had 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:50.800 to do with um astronomy and his astronomical thought. He 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:57.400 actually had had been able to sort of using his 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.840 tools of his time, he was able to get an 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:05.680 eye a reasonable idea of the diameter of the sun, um, 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.800 you know, through his uh using instruments to observe this. 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.960 And this is of course long before people that we 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:16.440 sort of associate with um astronomy, you know, modern astronomy, 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:20.960 people like Galileo UM. You know. There he was really 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.480 sort of in a groundbreaking category in this regard. But 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:28.479 all there were others who who worked with these principles 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:32.480 to um. You know, his work went into uh, several 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:35.040 others as well, but UM, I think it's sort of 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:39.160 disappeared for a while. UM. And they were the kinds 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.840 of things too that stood out. People like Plutarch, the 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.320 uh um you know, who wrote quite a bit about 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:50.360 the famous people of his time, categorized archimedes work. UM 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:54.200 and he's you know, these things were well enough documented 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.560 that he was able to to pull this out. So yeah, 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.320 I'd like to talk about another real quick legendary Archimedes 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:06.720 moment um. This would be another great quote. Yes it does. 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:09.680 It has to do with the bathtub. So this is 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:13.720 again a possibly apocryphal story. So in other words, this 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.560 this may not be true. In fact, I think a 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.480 lot of historians put this in the realm of legend 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:23.320 for for many reasons, one of which is that the 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:29.040 solution Archimedes came up with was actually not as not 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.720 as difficult to to get to as you would imagine. So, 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:35.240 in other words, it seems like it's too easy an 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.720 answer for Archimedes is almost the argument here. But the 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.920 the situation was that you had the King of Syracuse 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:48.920 who had commissioned a a golden crown, and this golden 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:53.320 crown was made, but the king was suspicious of the 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.360 golden crown. He thought that perhaps the person who made 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.920 it actually used silver to make the crown and then 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.880 coated it with gold in order to UH to cheat 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:07.600 the king out of money, essentially because silver was less 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:12.119 precious than gold, and therefore by using gold silver in 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.000 the crown, he could make it for for less money 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:17.959 than it would cost him uh to to gather all 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.720 the materials, and thus have a higher profit. So how 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:24.080 do you figure out if it weighs the right amount 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.840 for a crown of that general size? Um, how do 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:31.679 you figure out whether or not silver was used? Well, 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.399 silver doesn't weigh as much as gold does. So in 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:36.280 other in other words, in order to make a silver 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:39.119 crown that would weigh the same amount as a gold crown, 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.679 you would have to add more silver. Right, So, if 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:46.679 you had a cube of silver and a cube of 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.720 gold that were the exact same size, the gold would 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:52.560 weigh more. So in order to make the cube's weigh 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:54.719 the same, you would have to have a bigger cube 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.680 of silver. Right, So that was that was what Archimedes 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:00.680 came up with. He came up with this adea of well, 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.520 if I use the amount of gold that it takes 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.639 to create the weight of this crown, let's say this 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.040 crown weighs let's just say ten pounds. Okay, okay, So 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:13.440 for the argument's sake, this crown weighed ten pounds. So 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:15.080 what our community said, Well, what if I get ten 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:19.040 pounds of gold, and then I use some way to 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:23.119 determine the mass of that gold, and then I use 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.920 that same measurement for the crown. If the measurements the same, 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.720 then we can come to the conclusion that the gold 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:32.040 that is gold in the crown, if the if it's different, 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:33.840 then we can say that maybe there's a different material 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:38.600 in here. So what he did was he took a bath. Yes, 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:42.399 so this all has to do with the displacement of 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.960 water by putting the the and again we're just using 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:50.119 this this measurement out of for for simplicity's sake. Putting 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:52.679 ten pounds of gold in the bath, he sees how 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.720 much water is displaced, how far that water is displaced 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.480 in the bath, and then putting the crown in there, 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.719 he can see how much water is displaced from there, 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.400 and the the amount is different than he knows that 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:08.440 the two materials are not the same. And supposedly he 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:13.520 became so excited by this discovery that he ran out 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:19.120 of his home. Starkers, I'm that's not a joke. That's 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:21.960 part of the legend. Know that that part is not 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:27.640 what's cracking up Starkers. He was naked as a blue 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.880 jay running down the road, turning into my kinfolk here. 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.879 Um so anyway, yeah, completely nude, running down the street 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:41.720 and screams out Eureka, which means I have found it 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:46.800 also is a quirky, uh dramatic comedy on the sci 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:51.600 Fi network. Yes, that is anyway, So Eureka, that's that's 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:53.440 where we get that when when you have someone who 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.240 makes a discovering screams out eureka, they are essentially paying 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:01.600 homage to Archimedes, which, again, since this is a potentially 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:07.120 apocryphal story, we might just be paying homage to a legend. Well, 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:13.000 apparently the bathtub part is what's probably apocryphal, but the 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:17.119 crown part apparently is true. Um, they do. They do 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:19.800 seem to feel, or at least Britannic Adust seems to 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:23.600 feel that that that he was asked to determine whether 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:28.600 or not the crown was actually gold apparently really did happen. Yeah, 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:30.600 and and then you know, you would want somebody like 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.719 Archimedes to do this because he was thinking scientifically in 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.080 this case. And the reason you might say, well, why 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.200 don't they just scratched the crown and see if they're 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:42.760 silver and they bite it like your coin, right, Well, 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.399 the problem here was that the crown was considered to 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:50.199 be almost a holy relic. It was because you're the 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:53.760 kings of the Greeks were they would trace their lineage 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:58.399 back to God's and so you couldn't destroy the crown 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:01.359 in any way because that was an front to the gods. 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.320 So he had to find a non destructive way to 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:07.720 test this without you know, without actually causing any sort 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:12.000 of damage to the crown, which makes it way more difficult. Um. 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:16.080 And then we have another object that is attributed to Archimedes, 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:21.000 although it's very possible that it actually predates his lifetime 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:23.080 and it's just that he observed it and then was 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.560 able to apply it elsewhere, which is the Archimedes screw. Yes, 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:30.240 you know, well, how could it not be Archimedes invention? 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:36.919 It has his name right there in the name. Well, yeah, 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:42.000 McDonald's isn't named for somebody named McDonald, so you know 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:45.320 there's a name. A name is is a tricky thing sometimes, 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:49.919 but yes, he did. He did observe the principle that uh, 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.720 you know, the hydrostatic principle using using the screw to 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:58.520 raise water, which sounds counterintuitive at first until you realize 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.520 how this is implemented. It's actually a screw that is, 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:05.080 in general, the screw is encased in a tube and 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:07.800 then you lay it in a at an angle whereof 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:09.600 you know, one end is raised at the top and 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:12.600 the other end goes into the water. So you've got 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.080 one end that that descends into the water, and you 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:18.160 have one end that's above the water level. You start 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:20.240 turning that screw and what it does is it scoops 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:23.439 the water and the water travels up the screw just 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:26.000 because of the principle of the screw as you turn 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:29.879 it within this tube. Now there's you know, you might 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:32.320 have some leakage issues where some of the water leaks 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:34.159 back down to the next level down. But as as 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:36.919 soon as you start turning that screw in a nice clip, 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:40.000 eventually the water starts coming to the surface, and the 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:43.879 the speed that you turn the screw will counteract the 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:46.359 leaking problem. And since it's just leaking to the next 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:49.840 level down, it essentially becomes a non issue once you 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:52.560 get to a certain speed and you can actually lift 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:55.440 water out of out of a body of water that way, 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:58.800 and this was often used in our commedes time two 0:22:59.200 --> 0:23:02.640 pull water from say a lake and put it into 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:05.960 an irrigation system. The Greeks and Romans were both very 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:10.399 big on irrigation. Yes indeed, um, yeah, Actually that reminds 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:14.879 me of there's an infant toy that has three or 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:18.760 four little plastic balls and there's a screw inside and 0:23:18.800 --> 0:23:21.440 if you push down and it's encased as you said, 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:23.280 in it and not in a tube. It's actually sort 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:27.040 of a it's not conical, but it does get narrower 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:28.720 at the top than it is at the bottom. And 0:23:28.760 --> 0:23:31.520 when you press down on the plunger in the center, 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:34.080 it makes the screw turn. And the faster you push it, 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:38.639 the higher the balls climb up the screw until you stop, 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:41.440 and then they know spin back down. I mean there's 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:45.200 you know, not hydro static, there's no water, and but yeah, 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:47.160 it's the same kind of thing, and you can sort 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:49.440 of if you've seen that, that's you can sort of 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:52.480 imagine that because it's you don't often see an archimedes 0:23:52.520 --> 0:23:56.200 screw in practice, although you you you can see them 0:23:56.200 --> 0:23:58.359