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Archimedes - Creativity and ScienceArchimedes - Creativity and Science

 

Archimedes (287-212 BC)

 

Father of modern science (pictured right) from Syracuse in Sicily.

 

Why is he famous?

Legend says he ran through the streets naked after a bath shouting “Eureka!”  (“I have found it!”) on discovering the Archimedes Principle (that says an object displaces its own weight in water).

 

Why was he so creative?

 Archimedes - Creativity and Science

1. Inspiration with perspiration

His famous eureka moment in the bath would have been impossible without his preliminary hard work and thought.

 

2. Original and imaginative

He was the first person to use mathematics to solve practical problems.

For example, he discovered the

 Archimedes - Creativity and Science

a) Archimedes screw

A revolving screw inside a hollow pipe in which water rises up to a higher level (pictured right). 

 

b) approximate volume and area of a sphere

 

Archimedes - Creativity and Science

c) approximate value of pi (pictured right)

  

d) distance of the planets from the Earth

 Archimedes - Creativity and Science

e) principle of the lever 

(levering things upwards on a fulcrum).

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world”, he said.

 Pictured right is Archimedes levering the world in a 1824 London magazine. 

 

3. Questioning and argument

He continually questioned:Archimedes - Creativity and Science

  • existing knowledge.
  • other people’s assumptions.

He proved a hypothesis by:

  • asking ‘what if?’ questions.
  • saying ’let us pretend’.
  • discussing and arguing ideas with other people.

 Archimedes - Creativity and Science

4. Concentration and obsession with a problem

He concentrated so intensely on the problems facing him that he:

  • didn’t wash or look after himself.
  • had to be forced to have a bath (and even then he was still thinking about his work) .
  • was killed by a Roman soldier (because he refused to move until he had worked out a problem).

He was unaware that the Romans had invaded!

 

5. Fun and leisure

Because he was quite rich, he had lots of time to think and reflect.

He was also able to work so hard because he loved it so much.

Archimedes - Creativity and Science 

6. Simplification

He solved complex problems by splitting them up into smaller, easier ones.


 

Key quote on creativity

Eureka!( I have found it!)

 

Key quote on science

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.

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