Archimedes of Syracuse As you look over time at the countless billions of people who have lived and toiled on this piece of rock we call earth, many questions may arise in your mind. Such questions might have something to do with how people lived at a certain time or what actually happened in a certain place. But one question we sometimes forget to ask is: How does fate choose those few lucky individuals and empower them to leave a lasting legacy that will have far-reaching effects even after they turn to dust in their graves? We all hope that, by chance, we can make our mark on this planet through what we do while we live. But usually when we're gone all we have to show for our existence is our family, and some of us don't even have that. But for some, fate smiles and sets things in motion so that a person can remember his actions over time. Archimedes was such a man. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayIn the year 287 BC, in the city of Syracuse, Sicily, Archimedes was born. Very little is known about his early life, in fact nothing is even known about his family other than his father's name was Phidias and his father was an astronomer. However, it is suspected that he studied with the students of the great Euclid. Euclid is known as the father of Geometry, which is why I would like to go back in time and slap this man in the face for making Geometry so difficult to understand. At an early age Archimedes showed great ingenuity towards everything related to science and mathematics. While Archimedes was a child he may have studied in Alexandria, Egypt along with Conon of Samos who would become a court astronomer for Ptolemy III, an Egyptian pharaoh, and Eratosthenes of Cyrene who was the Greek scholar who invented the use of latitude and of longitude on maps, he was also the first man to use the word geography. After Archimedes grew up and finished his studies, he returned to Syracuse where he lived the rest of his life and completed his most important work. In his lifetime Archimedes became known for his interests in many different fields. Indeed Archimedes was a true Renaissance man, having become at the time especially in the fields of physics, engineering, astronomy, invention and, last but not least, mathematics. In fact, when it came to mathematics, Archimedes is well known for his ability to calculate the quantity and/or size of certain objects. For example, it was Archimedes who discovered the formula for measuring a circle. It also provided an extremely accurate representation or pi. While these are certainly surprising results, one of his greatest achievements would be to demonstrate that the area enclosed by a parabola and a straight line is 43 times the area of ​​a corresponding inscribed triangle. At this point I would like to go back and slap Archimedes in the face because this past result represented the beginning of trigonometry. Even though I'm not studying trigonometry yet, I'm sure I'll despise it because I simply hate triangles, mainly because they're not square or circular. While Archimedes may have accomplished all these mathematical feats and invented engineering principles and inventions that we still use today, at some points in his life he was simply comical. According to popular story, the king served by Archimedes gave a solid block of ten pounds of gold to two goldsmiths and told them to make him the most beautiful crown imaginable. When the crown was ready, it was presented to the king..