Archimedes

Born in 287 B.C. and dead in 212 B.C., both at Syracus, Archimedes is one of the most Greek scholarly of the Great Age.

He is the most famous physicist of that time. He invented the lever, the endless screw (also called the Archimedes' screw), and cogwheels. Operational research is also part of his inventions. Thanks to machines of his invention, such as solar mirrors and catapults, he held the consul Marcellus –who was besieging the city- in check.

Founder of the static mechanics, he determined –while he was bathing and from where, it is said, he run into the street shouting: “Eureka, I found it!”, the thrust of a surrounding fluid imprinted on a solid (Archimedes' principle).

That is how he thwarted a jeweller's trickery who had mixed up silver with gold on doing a golden crown –supposedly all made of gold.

When Marcellus finally besieged Syracuse, a Roman soldier killed the scientist by mistake, at the foot of the wall of the Greek colony.