Archimedes Essays (910 words) - Archimedes, Buoyancy, Eureka

Archimedes Archimedes is considered one of the three greatest mathematicians of all time along with Newton and Gauss. In his own time, he was known as the wise one, the master and the great geometer and his works and inventions brought him fame that lasts to this very day. He was one of the last great Greek mathematicians. Born in 287 B.C., in Syracuse, a Greek seaport colony in Sicily, Archimedes was the son of Phidias, an astronomer. Except for his studies at Euclid's school in Alexandria, he spent his entire life in his birthplace. Archimedes proved to be a master at mathematics and spent most of his time contemplating new problems to solve, becoming at times so involved in his work that he forgot to eat. Lacking the blackboards and paper of modern times, he used any available surface, from the dust on the ground to ashes from an extinguished fire, to draw his geometric figures. Never giving up an opportunity to ponder his work, after bathing and anointing himself with olive oil, he would trace figures in the oil on his own skin. Much of Archimedes fame comes from his relationship with Hiero, the king of Syracuse, and Gelon, Hiero's son. The great geometer had a close friendship with and may have been related to the monarch. In any case, he seemed to make a hobby out of solving the king's most complicated problems to the utter amazement of the sovereign. At one time, the king ordered a gold crown and gave the goldsmith the exact amount of metal to make it. When Hiero received it, the crown had the correct weight but the monarch suspected that some silver had been used instead of the gold. Since he could not prove it, he brought the problem to Archimedes. One day while considering the question, the wise one entered his bathtub and recognized that the amount of water that overflowed the tub was proportional the amount of his body that was submerged. This observation is now known as Archimedes' Principle and gave him the means to solve the problem. He was so excited that he ran naked through the streets of Syrac use shouting Eureka! eureka! (I have found it!). The fraudulent goldsmith was brought to justice. Another time, Archimedes stated Give me a place to stand on and I will move the earth. King Hiero, who was absolutely astonished by the statement, asked him to prove it. In the harbor was a ship that had proved impossible to launch even by the combined efforts of all the men of Syracuse. Archimedes, who had been examining the properties of levers and pulleys, built a machine that allowed him the single-handedly move the ship from a distance away. He also had many other inventions including the Archimedes' watering screw and a miniature planetarium. Though he had many great inventions, Archimedes considered his purely theoretical work to be his true calling. His accomplishments are numerous. His approximation of between 3-1/2 and 3-10/71 was the most accurate of his time and he devised a new way to approximate square roots. Unhappy with the unwieldy Greek number system, he devised his own that could accommodate larger numbers more easily. He invented the entire field of hydrostatics with the discovery of the Archimedes' Principle. However, his greatest invention was integral calculus. To determine the area of sections bounded by geometric figures such as parabolas and ellipses, Archimedes broke the sections into an infinite number of rectangles and added the areas together. This is known as integration. He also anticipated the invention of differential calculus as he devised ways to approximate the slope of the tangent lines to his figures. In addition, he also made many other discoveries in geometry, mechanics and other fields. The end of Archimedes life was anything but uneventful. King Hiero had been so impressed with his friend's inventions that he persuaded him to develop weapons to defend the city. These inventions would prove quite useful. In 212 B.C., Marcellus, a Roman general, decided to conquer Syracuse with a full frontal assault on both land and sea. The Roman legions were routed. Huge catapults hurled 500 pound boulders at the soldiers; large cranes with

Positions for and Against Abortion

Positions for and Against Abortion Many points come up in the abortion debate. Heres a look at abortion from both sides: 10 arguments for abortion and 10 arguments against abortion, for a total of 20 statements that represent a range of topics as seen from both sides. Pro-Life Arguments Since life begins at conception, abortion is akin to murder as it is the act of taking human life. Abortion is in direct defiance of the commonly accepted idea of the sanctity of human lifeNo civilized society permits one human to intentionally harm or take the life of another human without punishment, and abortion is no different.Adoption is a viable alternative to abortion and accomplishes the same result. And with 1.5 million American families wanting to adopt a child, there is no such thing as an unwanted child.An abortion can result in medical complications later in life; the risk of ectopic pregnancies doubles and the chance of a miscarriage and pelvic inflammatory disease also increases.In the instance of rape and incest, proper medical care can ensure that a woman will not get pregnant. Abortion punishes the unborn child who committed no crime; instead, it is the perpetrator who should be punished.Abortion should not be used as another form of contraception.For women who dema nd complete control of their body, control should include preventing the risk of unwanted pregnancy through the responsible use of contraception or, if that is not possible, through abstinence. Many Americans who pay taxes are opposed to abortion, therefore its morally wrong to use tax dollars to fund abortion.Those who choose abortions are often minors or young women with insufficient life experience to understand fully what they are doing. Many have lifelong regrets afterward.Abortion frequently causes intense psychological pain and stress. Pro-Choice Arguments Nearly all abortions take place in the first trimester when a fetus is attached by the placenta and umbilical cord to the mother. As such, its health is dependent on her health, and cannot be regarded as a separate entity as it cannot exist outside her womb.The concept of personhood is different from the concept of human life. Human life occurs at conception, but fertilized eggs used for in vitro fertilization are also human lives and those not implanted are routinely thrown away. Is this murder, and if not, then how is abortion murder?Adoption is not an alternative to abortion because it remains the womans choice whether or not to give her child up for adoption. Statistics show that very few women who give birth choose to give up their babies; less than 3 percent of white unmarried women and less than 2 percent of percent black​ unmarried women.Abortion is a safe medical procedure. The vast majority of women (88 percent) who have an abortion do so in their first trimester. Me dical abortions have less than 0.5 percent risk of serious complications and do not affect a womans health or future ability to become pregnant or give birth. In the case of rape or incest, forcing a woman made pregnant by this violent act would cause further psychological harm to the victim. Often a woman is too afraid to speak up or is unaware she is pregnant, thus the morning after pill is ineffective in these situations.Abortion is not used as a form of contraception. Pregnancy can occur even with responsible contraceptive use. Only 8Â  percent of women who have abortions do not use any form of birth control, and that is due more to individual carelessness than to the availability of abortion.The ability of a woman to have control of her body is critical to civil rights. Take away her reproductive choice and you step onto a slippery slope. If the government can force a woman to continue a pregnancy, what about forcing a woman to use contraception or undergo sterilization?Taxpayer dollars are used to enable poor women to access the same medical services as rich women, and abortion is one of these services. Funding abortion is no differ ent from funding a war in the Mideast. For those who are opposed, the place to express outrage is in the voting booth. Teenagers who become mothers have grim prospects for the future. They are much more likely to leave school; receive inadequate prenatal care; rely on public assistance to raise a child; develop health problems; or end up divorced.Like any other difficult situation, abortion creates stress. Yet the American Psychological Association found that stress was greatest prior to an abortion and that there was no evidence of post-abortion syndrome.