Archimedes: Fulcrum of Science

(Hardback)

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Galileo, Leonardo, Newton, Tesla - all revered him. As an engineer, Archimedes of Syracuse almost single-handedly held off the world's most powerful army. In an era of abacuses and sundials, he designed geared calculating devices that accurately modeled the solar system. As a mathematician, he knew more in 212 BCE than all of Europe for the next seventeen centuries. In this bold reimagining, modern polymath Nicholas Nicastro shines new light on Archimedes' life and work. Far from the aloof, physically inept figure of historical myth, he is revealed to be an ambitious, combative and fiercely competitive man. A genius who challenged an empire, Archimedes emerges as the world's first fully modern scientist - millennia before his intellectual descendants transformed our world.

Reviews

'With Archimedes: Fulcrum of Science, Nick Nicastro gives us an engaging account of the life and legacy of Archimedes of Syracuse, renowned in antiquity and later for his work as a mathematician and engineer. Nicastro presents Archimedes' ideas and achievements with admirable clarity, set within the context of his time and place.' - Liba Taub, Director and Curator of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Cambridge

Author Bio

Nicholas Nicastro has taught history, anthropology and psychology at Cornell University and Hobart-William Smith Colleges. His books include Circumference: Eratosthenes and the Ancient Quest to Measure the Globe (2008), and he has written for the New York Times, the New York Observer and Archaeology.