Pi invented…

Pi..??? 3.14159265… aaahh we always knew the value of pi… but seldom we ask ourselves who invented it… this is one of the ocean full of inventions where we are amicable with the invention but not the inventor…

Eureka.. Eureka… aahh now you know who I am going to write about… if your guess is Archimedes then you are right… this is how its been, we associate eureka more to Archimedes than pi. Pi wouldn’t be a great invention if it were invented some 5 or 600 years back. Reading a book about Archimedes made me aware of few amazing facts about Archimedes.

Archimedes was born in Greece in 287 B.C. some 2000 years back. This is a period when there was no paper or pen, a period when there were no present numbers, a period hundred’s of years before the invention of zero. The biggest number they knew was myriad, represented as word which equals to 10,000. There was no proper number system at that time. The Greeks used their alphabets as numerals; an alphabet with a small dash besides it represents a number.

I always thought that Archimedes was just into physics and invented pulleys/levers, objects floating in water, buoyancy laws etc etc. he was not just into physics,he was a mathematician, an astronomer, and a great scientist. His favorite being astronomy as his father is an astronomer too. He stated the laws of center of gravity long before Newton discovered gravity. All his inventions and discoveries were amazing considering the fact that he lived in the time before Christ. He invented pi when there were no proper measuring or drawing instruments other than a compass to draw a circle and a scale for straight lines. He fitted a circle in a 96 sided polygon and discovered that the area of circle is approximately equal to area of 96 sided polygon. That is how he computed the area of circle. There was no proper paper at that time; people learn things by writing with stick on sand. This is how he invented pi by drawing smallest 96 sided polygon outside the circle. Most of his work is lost in time and without proper evidences.

‘All great lives don’t end great’, this is what I feel and the life of Archimedes has disclosed it one more time. Archimedes lived in a small island called Syracuse. Their king Hiero had foreseen a threat to the island and asked Archimedes to build a machine which could fight the enemies. Archimedes was reluctant initially and said that he has more important things to work on and besides science is some thing constructive but not destructive for him. But the king would not listen to him, he kept on begging him and finally Archimedes made it. It was used years after the king’s death when Romans were trying to invade the island. The machines Archimedes invented were successful in throwing out the enemies. They were like canons throwing huge stones and arrows at the enemy ships when they were far off. He even used mirrors to reflect the sun rays and burn the enemy ships. The machines were so successful that the people there have started growing careless. One day when the islanders were celebrating a feast Marcellus and his army attacked the island. The islanders were running all over the streets, there were fires all around . Archimedes was at his home solving a problem unaware that the island has been occupied. General Marcellus ordered his men to bring Archimedes to him as he wanted to see the person who made others thinking dwarf. When a soldier came to Archimedes house he was solving a problem on sand with a stick, he was so intent on it that he did not hear the shouts and screaming in the city. When the soldier said that Marcellus wanted to see him, Archimedes was not ready to come. He said he is in the middle of the problem and he needs to complete it. The soldier got furious and stepped on his problem. Archimedes shouted stand off my diagram, and poked the soldier’s feet with his drawing stick. The soldier got annoyed and cutoff Archimedes head with his sword. This is how the life of a great inventor ended. Later Marcellus killed the soldier and built a tomb for Archimedes with a symbol of sphere inside a cylinder, his favorite invention which he wanted on his tomb.

Though Archimedes died, there is no end to him, even today; 2000 years after his death we still follow his laws. He is a great man who laid foundations to many further inventions.