Once, there was an emperor who wanted to make a special crown for his wife. He suspected it might not be pure gold, but there was no way to be sure.
Someone in the kingdom suggested a person who could help. This person thought day and night to figure out a way to know if the crown was made of real gold.
One day, while taking a bath, the person suddenly had an idea. Excitedly, he ran into the market, shouting, “Eureka, Eureka! I know, I know!” The next day, he inspected the crown.
He asked for water, measuring tools, and scales. After a lot of work, he presented the results to the king. He wrote down the weight of the crown, the weight of the real gold, and the amount of alloy in the gold. The calculations were correct.
This person became known as “Archimedes.” While bathing, Archimedes noticed that when he went into the water, he felt lighter. He realized this was because his body displaced some water.
Using this idea, he dipped the crown into the water and found out it was pure gold. This was possible because every metal has its own weight and volume, and Archimedes used the difference in weight and volume to solve the problem.
Measurement of volume by displacement, (a) before and (b) after an object has been submerged. The amount by which the liquid rises in the cylinder (∆V) is equal to the volume of the object.
Archimedes of Syracuse was an Ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily.
