Archimedes' principle
Principio de Arquímedes
- Date
- c. 250 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Syracuse, Sicily, Italy
- Credited to
- Archimedes of Syracuse
- People
- 👤 Arquímedes287 BCE–212 BCE
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Any body immersed in a fluid receives an upward vertical thrust equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces. The first quantitative law of hydrostatics and the founding of the study of flotation and density.
The anecdote of Hiero's crown and the 'Eureka!' comes from Vitruvius, 1st century BCE. 'On Floating Bodies' is the original treatise.
What it led to
- Hydrostatics as a mathematical science
- Ship and submarine design by buoyancy calculation
- Determination of densities and material purity
- Fluid mechanics (Pascal, Bernoulli)
Built on
- Euclidean axiomatic geometryc. 300 BCE
- Euclidean geometry
- Practical tradition of scales and weights