The life of Archimedes had an impact on many people of his time as his inventions brought a new level to ancient warfare. He was also well known for being a mathematician and for his scientific writings, many of which still survive today. Archimedes was born in Syracuse, Sicily, and lived to be seventy-five years old. This places the date of his birth around 287 BC and the date of his death around 362 BC. His father was an astronomer and may have been related to Hiero II, king of Syracuse ("Archimedes"). We don't know much about his childhood, but we do know that he studied with Euclid in Alexandria, Egypt. After his studies, he returned to Syracuse and made the many inventions that still impact us today (“Biography of Archimedes”). The discovery for which Archimedes is perhaps most famous is Archimedes' Principle. King Hiero II gave a goldsmith a certain quantity of gold and asked him to make a crown from it. Once the crown was completed, the king suspected that the goldsmith had replaced some of the gold in the crown with silver. Archimedes was asked to discover the truth without melting the crown to calculate its density ("Archimedes' Principle"). Later, when he took a bath, Archimedes saw the water flowing over the edges of the bathtub. As he watched the water overflow, he suddenly found his answer. “Eureka!” » he shouted as he jumped out of the bathtub and ran down the street without his clothes (qtd. in Gow 50). Clifford A. Pickover's Archimedes to Hawking explains it this way: "Because gold has a greater density than silver, a cube of gold would be smaller than a cube of silver of equal weight, which would result in less water spilling out of the bucket. » Archimedes could do the same thing with the crown as in the bath to know the density...... middle of paper...... revealing the true genius of the greatest scientist of Antiquity. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press. 2007. Print. “Archimedes.” Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. November 2013. Web. November 19, 2013. “Biography of Archimedes.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. and Web. November 19, 2013. Matters, Energy. “Did Archimedes’ solar-powered death ray exist?” Energy matters. August 19, 2010. the web. November 18, 2013. “Archimedes Screw”. How it works. and Web. November 19, 2013. “Dossier: Conceptual diagram of the Archimedes screw”. Wikimedia Commons. October 24, 2013. the web. November 21, 2013. “Archimedes’ screw.” Thomasnet. November 25, 2013. the web. November 20, 2013. “Archimedes’ screw.” Princeton University. and Web. November 19, 2013. “Death of Archimedes”. Death of Archimedes. and Web. November 16, 2013. “Archimedes”. Ancient Greece. and Web. November 16 2013.