It was last Thursday evening I believe, I was searching the menu of DirecTV for some episode of NCIS or Criminal Minds or Bones that I had not yet seen. Currently DTV was tuned to CBS and the show Big Bang Theory was showing. Now you see why I was searching for something else to watch.
With our DirecTV, probably like yours, when searching for what else is on, the current selection is displayed in the upper right-hand corner and you can still hear what the characters are saying. The Big Bang Theory is not a show I watch regularly, in fact, I have never seen it before, but I have the idea of generally what is going on in the show.
In this show, apparently Sheldon is trying to form a new group of friends and they are introducing themselves to each other—yeah, a little awkward, I guess. One of the new friends introduces himself by describing a naked hot tub incident—at this point Sheldon interrupts with the story of Archimedes and the king’s gold crown. Since I already knew about Archimedes and the king’s gold crown and I had NO interest in the friend's experience in the hot tub and I found something else to watch, I changed the channel.For those of you who are dying to know the story of
Archimedes and the King’s Gold Crown
or
When you get out of the tub, don’t forget to get dressed…
Eureka! here it is:
Archimedes was one smart cookie. He was one of those guys who was so smart that he only needed one name—you know, like Galileo, Newton, Plato, Aristotle, Einstein, K-Lock, people who are instantly recognized just by one name. Archimedes was a mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. He lived in Greece in the third century BC (287 – 212 BC). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes) In fact, it was the tenacity with which he approached problems that cost him his life.
During the Siege of Syracuse when the Romans took over Greece, a soldier told Archimedes to come with him. When he replied that he had to finish this math problem first, the Roman soldier stabbed him. (No this is not an excuse for not doing your homework!)
Two of his greatest contributions were the understanding of the principal of the lever and the invention of the Archimedean screw for lifting and pumping things.
Well his uncle was King Hiero II, king of Syracuse. King Hiero II had provided a certain quantity of gold to the royal goldsmith with which to fashion a votive crown to be placed in the temple. The king was convinced that the royal goldsmith was dishonest and approached Archimedes for a method of determining whether the goldsmith had used all the gold he was given in the crown or if he had substituted a less valuable metal and kept part of the gold for himself.
Since the crown was of irregular shape, it was impossible to calculate its volume; and since it was a gift for the temple, it was not to be destroyed, damaged, or changed in any way…what to do?
Archimedes decided to take a bath and think about the problem—here is the segue to the naked hot tub incident. Not paying complete attention, Archimedes filled the tub to the brim. As he entered the tub, the water level rose and overflowed onto the floor. At this point, he knew he had the solution to the problem. Whereupon, he exited the tub and cried “Eureka! Eureka!”, which is Greek for “I’ve found it! I’ve found it!” and ran home to tell his wife. Unfortunately, in his excitement, he forgot to put his clothes back on so most of the people observing this thought he had LOST it rather than found it. What he had discovered was that solid objects immersed in water, displace water. In fact, it turns out that the volume of water displaced equals the volume of the object doing the displacement. Of course, knowing the volume and the weight gives the density and through some really neat math it can be determined, for example if the crown was made of pure gold or some mixture.
By the way, the royal goldsmith was shown to be a crook and had, in fact, doctored up the gold with silver to line his pockets with gold.
~klock
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