Archimedes, who lived around 300 BC, was one of the greatest Greek scientists of his era. He hailed from Syracuse and when the Romans attacked the city by sea and land, they were stricken and left dumbfounded by immense masses of missiles and stones hurled at them with incredible speeded and precision. Ships were lifted out of the water and overturned, all because of the engineering genius of Archimedes. He discovered various types of machines and mastered the art of leverage. But that was not all. His most famous contribution to science is an important principle-called the Archimedes’ principle.
When the jumped into a bathtub and found that as he went lower he displaced more water and felt more buoyant, he was jubilant as rushed out naked shouting “ Eureka, eureka”, which means I found it! What he had discovered was the principle named after him. From it he was able to solve the problem set by king Hiero as to whether the crown given to him was made of pure gold or had some silver mixed with it. He solved the problem by determining the mass of water displaced by the crown and by an equal mass of pure gold. Since the former was more, the king had been tricked by this ships were made of wood, and people never imagined that ships made of iron could float. Archimedes showed that this was possible.