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Archimedes' other extant treatises are:
On the Equilibrium of Planes (two volumes)
On Spirals
On Conoids and Spheroids
The Quadrature of the Parabola
From references to him in the writings of other authors, we know that Archimedes wrote several more works, which have not survived. Among these is what is known as the Cattle Problem, which asks us to calculate the number of cattle owned by the Sun God Helios, starting from a few simple relations. Though no original work by Archimedes regarding this problem has survived, the problem is believed to have originated, at least partially, from him. This problem was finally fully solved in 1965, with the help of computers.
Other works attributed to Archimedes survive in Arabic translation. It is not certain though, whether they really were written by Archimedes, or are merely derived from or based on his work. These include the Stomachion (parts of which also survive in Greek), which describes a game or puzzle in which a square is divided into fourteen pieces of different shapes, that have to be rearranged to form other interesting shapes.
In the 10th century AD, several of Archimedes works were copied by an unknown scribe, most probably a monk, into a parchment codex or book. In the 12th century AD, the book was unbound and washed, and the parchment on which Archimedes' works were copied was reused and rebound. The erasure was partial, and today, thanks to the power of modern technology, we can read what the monk had copied. This parchment is called the 'Archimedes Palimpsest' (a palimpsest is a manuscript page, that has been written on, cleaned, and used again). This is NOT a separate work of Archimedes, but a collection of some of his works discussed above.
Archimedes is also called the father of integral calculus and of mathematical physics.
Read more...
Archimedes' Inventions
Archimedes cont'd...
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See also:
'Eureka' - the story of Archimedes and the Golden Crown
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Who was Galileo?
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