20. Image Credits
• http://www.math.nyu.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/Claw/trebuchet/claw_trebuchet.mov
• http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Archimedes-screw_one-screw-th
Creative Commons
• http://science.discovery.com/videos/what-the-ancients-knew-the-archimedes-screw.htm
• Stanzino delle Matematiche in the Galleria degli Uffizi (Florence, Italy). Painted by
Giulio Parigi (1571-1635) in the years 1599-1600.
• Maecenas: Images of Ancient Greece and Rome. Photos by Leo C. Curran
http://wings.buffalo.edu/AandL/Maecenas/general_contents.html
21. • Ancient Greece.com
http://wings.buffalo.edu/AandL/Maecenas/general_contents.html
• Levers, Library ThinkQuest
http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0210120/lever.html
• http://www.cs.drexel.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/contents.html
• http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/experiments/deathray/10_ArchimedesResult.html
• Web Pages of St. G. Frangopoulos
http://sfrang.com/historia/graphics/20/20-33a.jpg
• Ancient Greek Music http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agm/index.htm
Editor's Notes
I did my own version of Mrs. Brockway’s assignment, just to see what the possibilities are. She has given you all wide latitude in the type of project you can do. Her minimum level project would be a PPT presentation, but I understand that you all are required to do one slide on your character. As you’ve just seen from the PPT that Mrs. Ripa put together, PPT is a visual medium. Try to use it that way! If you’re just putting text on a slide, you’re better off handing in a written report. One thing you WON’T find in this PPT is a bulleted list with lots of text. I hope that I can help you accomplish anything you’d like to do with a PPT presentation. But you have to start with some inspiration. Move away from the computer, take out a pen and paper and think first. Use your imagination!
I choose to look at Ancient Greece. And I decided not to do a mythological character, but instead I focused on a real individual. He was a scientist, a mathematician, and an inventor, particularly of more modern machines. Many of his inventions were inspired by his desire to help defend his city from the invading Romans. We’re going to take a look at a few of his inventions. Many of his ideas are still very relevant today.
I’m not sure about this one, though! The Iron Hand, or The Claw!
It was designed to defend the ancient city of Syracuse from the Romans during the Second Punic War more than two hundred years BCE. This painting is in the Uffizi museum on Florence, Italy. It was painted in 1599 by Giulio Parigi.
This is Archimedes. Hard at work solving some scientific problem. It is said that he would become so engrossed in a problem that he would forget about everything else, even forgetting to eat.
Archimedes was born around 287 BC in Syracuse, or, in Italian, Siracusa, on the island of Sicily, which was a Greek colony at the time. This is a photo of Syracuse today. These are the ruins of the Temple of Apollo.
Here are two other photos of Syracuse today. You can see that it looks out over the ocean. Archimedes lived all of his life in this seaside city and water figures prominently in many of his inventions and discoveries. He died in 212 BCE at the hands of a Roman soldier. In the midst of a two year long siege during the Second Punic War, Archimedes was hard at work solving a mathematical problem, drawing a diagram with geometric shapes, when he was confronted by a Roman soldier. According to legend, at the time of his death, Archimedes’ last words were “Do not disturb my circles!”
This is a story about Archimedes that you are probably familiar with. The king of Syracuse, King Hiero, had asked the well known scientist to determine whether a crown the king had bought was indeed made of gold, or of a cheaper, less dense metal. The King had no way to investigate but he suspected that he had been cheated. Archimedes thought about the problem for a long time. Then one day, he noticed while he was taking a bath, that when he got into the tub, the water level rose. He suddenly realized that that was the key! He could measure the displaced water, use it in a mathematical formula, to determine the volume of an object. Archimedes was so excited by his realization that he supposedly hopped out of the tub and ran out into the streets stark naked, shouting “Eureka!”, which means, “I’ve got it!”
Another one of his inventions is called the Archimedes Screw. Archimedes was commissioned to design a dual purpose ship, called the Syracusia, which would be used for travel and also as a warship. With the capacity to carry 600 people, it was kind of like an ancient luxury cruise ship, complete with a gymnasium, a garden, and a temple to Aphrodite.
The Archimedes Screw was designed to pump out the bilge water, so the huge ship would not sink from the weight. Modern adaptations of the Archimedes Screw have been used in irrigation, and to pump out land from under sea water in the Netherlands. Even the design of snowblowers owes a debt to the Archimedes Screw.
The Claw, which was depicted in the painting that we saw earlier, was designed to defend Archimedes’ home city of Syracuse from water attack. (From the Romans, no doubt.) It is a essentially a trebuchet (or a catapult) with a claw on the end which would hook onto the body of a ship and lift it out of the water, capsizing it and sending the crew overboard.
Add Wagner sound file
You all know about the lever, one of the seven simple machines. Archimedes did not invent the lever. But he did figure out WHY it worked as it did. He famously said: “Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand and I will move the earth."
There are some historical accounts of the Siege of Syracuse that say enemy ships were destroyed by fire. Some writers mentioned what they called “burning glasses.” Did Archimedes actually invent a method of focusing the sun’s rays onto a single point, which might cause a ship to spontaneously combust?
There have been several attempts to recreate this weapon, the so-called “Death Ray”. In 1973 a Greek scientist focused 70 mirrors on a plywood ship, which did indeed burst into flames.
In 2005 students from MIT also tried to recreate the experiment and prove that the Death Ray really could have been used. They were successful. They then repeated the experiment for the Mythbusters TV show which only had inconclusive results. In 2009, another class of students at MIT decided to try again. So when a large plywood Roman ship rolled onto the quad on the MIT campus, it was met with 127 precisely positioned mirrors.
The weather didn’t cooperate, and cloudy skies lead only to some charring at first. You can see the ship smoking.
But when the sun comes out, bang! The ship ignites instantly!
I could go on and on, but I hope this has been a little helpful, to show you some of the multimedia you can include that will make your presentation much more interesting than just a bunch of bulleted lists.
