Few certain details remain about the life of
antiquity's greatest mathematician, Archimedes. We know
he was born in 287 B.C.E. around Syracuse from a report
about 1400 years after the fact. Archimedes tells about his
father, Pheidias, in his book The Sandreckoner. Pheidias
was an astronomer, who was famous for being the author of
a treatise on the diameters of the sun and the moon.
Historians speculate that Pheidias' profession explains why
Archimedes chose his career. Some scholars have
characterized Archimedes as an aristocrat who actively
participated in the Syracusan court and may have been
related to the ruler of Syracuse, King Hieron II. We also
know Archimedes died in 212 B.C.E. at the age of 75 in
Syracuse. It is said that he was killed by a Roman soldier,
who was offended by Achimedes, while the Romans seized
Syracuse. Archimedes had a wide variety of interests, which
included encompassing statics, hydrostatics, optics,
astronomy, engineering, geometry, and......
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