Eshan Maitra
We all read or heard about the silly story about Archimedes and one of his greatest discoveries. That, the moment he discovered it, he ran into the street from the bath house, barely with any clothes on. Some story extends it that, he ran into the castle to the king with nothing but his crown in his hand. Whatever the story might be. The discovery was very interesting. It put the name of Archimedes in the history book of greatest scientists of all time. You see, the story centers around a ‘Crown’ or ‘Corona’ in Latin. While Corona or ‘Korone’ in Greek meant ‘Keel’, most probably about a ship. Yes the discovery of the ‘Law of Buoyancy’ was much more interesting than you ever thought.
The story is about the greatest ship that was ever built in the ancient European civilization, the Syracusia. The Siciliancity King Heiron II of Syracuse ordered his fellow subjects to build such ship during the third century BC. It was built around 240 BC to be exact. As a very close person to the king and immense popularity as the greatest scientist of his time, Archimedes was put in charge to supervise and to do the reality check through calculations. The ship was to be sent to the Egyptian King Ptolemy as a gift. Archimedes was most probably very much tensed thinking about the pressure of responsibility, while he was relaxing in his bathtub. And wouldn’t he be? This colossal ship was to be a sailing vessel 50 times bigger than the biggest warships of that time. The task was similar to ‘Making a Mountain Fly’!
Hundreds of labors were hired in the years around construction project. The best kinds of the resources were brought from all over the Europe. Pine and Fir woods from Mount Etna, Hemp ropes from Spain and Pitch or Resin from France. 8 humongous watchtowers on the top of its deck was to be build. In the design, as if Atlas is holding the world on his back! Just imagine 8 of those in a row! There were also plans to build a temple to the goddess Aphrodite. Not only that, a catapult also needed to set up front that could hurl 189 pounds of stone missiles! Besides these, library full of books and statues, flower-lined promenade, sheltered swimming pool, a gymnasium and bathhouse with heated water were planned for the enjoyment of the passengers. It had to house over 1000 passengers, 600 soldiers and 20 horses in separate stalls. Also King Heiron wanted to send a huge amount of cargo with it as part of the gift and for the travelling passengers. 400 tons of grain, 10,000 jars of preserved fish, 74 tons of drums filled with drinking water and 600 tons of fine wool.
Probably the idea of the law came to his mind while he was floating in his bathtub. As he suggests, for a certain object to float, it has to displace the same amount of fluid equal to its mass by its area. To gain same amount of force from the water and float while sunk at the level of water.
So, if approximately 2,000 ton Syracusia could displace more than 2,000 ton of water, it would stay right up! Only if the bottom surface of ‘Keel’ part of the ship could displace more amount of water by mass than the ship’s mass. Then, as soon as Archimedes figured out the secret of Buoyancy. Eureka happened!
Similarly to the Titanic it only sailed for once in its lifetime. Unlike the tragedy of Titanic, this impressive ship actually made through its voyage to Egypt. We can only imagine how remarkable this ship was and how excited both the people of Greece and Egypt was when it sailed from one shore to another. Thanks to Archimedes, only his the genius made this wonder possible! And his legacy is still shines bright in the field of engineering.