The works of Archimedes are without exception, monuments of mathematical exposition the gradual revelation of the plan of attack, the masterly ordering of the propositions, the stern elimination of everything not immediately relevant to the purpose, the finish of the whole, are so impressive in their perfection as to create a feeling akin to awe in the mind of the reader.
Quotes about archimedes (16 Quotes)
It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to computations put our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions and we shall appreciate the grandeur of the achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.
about Archimedes ... being perpetually charmed by his familiar siren, that is, by his geometry, he neglected to eat and drink and took no care of his person that he was often carried by force to the baths, and when there he would trace geometrical figures in the ashes of the fire, and with his finger draw lines upon his body when it was anointed with oil, being in a state of great ecstasy and divinely possessed by his science.
The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
He was thinking alone, and seriously racking his brain to find a direction for this single force four times multiplied, with which he did not doubt, as with the lever for which Archimedes sought, they should succeed in moving the world, when some one tapped gently at his door.
Don't talk to me of your Archimedes' lever. He was an absentminded person with a mathematical imagination. Mathematics commands all my respect, but I have no use for engines. Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the world.
The greatest mathematicians, as Archimedes, Newton, and Gauss, always united theory and applications in equal measure.
Cyriac, whose grandsire on the royal bench Of British Themis, with no mean applause Pronounced and in his volumes taught our laws, Which others at their bar so often wrench Today deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth, that after no repenting draws Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause, And what the Swede intends, and what the French. To measure life learn thou betimes, and know Toward solid good what leads the nearest way For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains, And disapproves that care, though wise in show, That with superfluous burden loads the day, And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.
Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not.
I do not forget that I am a mechanic. I am proud to own it. Neither do I forget that . . . the apostle Paul was a tentmaker Socrates was a sculptor and Archimedes was a mechanic.
He who understands Archimedes and Apollonius will admire less the achievements of the foremost men of later times.
Archimedes constructing his circle pays with his life for his defective biological adaptation to immediate circumstances.
The simplest schoolboy is now familiar with truths for which Archimedes would have sacrificed his life.
Who would not rather have the fame of Archimedes than that of his conqueror Marcellus?
Spoken of the young Archimedes ... he was as much enchanted by the rudiments of algebra as he would have been if I had given him an engine worked by steam, with a methylated spirit lamp to heat the boiler more enchanted, perhaps for the engine would have got broken, and, remaining always itself, would in any case have lost its charm, while the rudiments of algebra continued to grow and blossom in his mind with an unfailing luxuriance. Every day he made the discovery of something which seemed to him exquisitely beautiful the new toy was inexhaustible in its potentialities.
No Roman ever died in contemplation over a geometrical diagram. A reference to the death of Archimedes.