How did Archemedes find out the King's crown was pure gold?

Question

Could you help me find this out? I know about the whole bath story.. but I need help with just basics of the story. Thank you so much!

Answer 1

Hi. Archimedes discovered that an object placed into water pushes out the same volume of water as the object has.

Answer 2

He measured the water displaced by an equal weight of gold and compared that to the water displaced by the crown. The crown in question did have silver in it and displaced more water than the pure gold crown that Archimedes made.

Who was Archimedes?

He was a very famous Greek mathematician, physicist, and inventor who lived in the 200’s B.C. (third century) on the island of Sicily in the town of Syracuse. The Greeks controlled Sicily and southern Italy at that time. Archimedes is famous for his work in geometry (on the circle, sphere, cylinder, and parabola), physics, mechanics, and hydrostatics. He possessed one of the best brains history has ever shown us. He was also blessed with both the leisure and disposition to use his mind in the pursuit of knowledge. He traveled to Alexandria, Egypt, to study all the mathematics that he could. He learned all that the successors of Euclid (the father of geometry) could teach him. Then he returned to Syracuse to continue his research. There is one well-known story that is told about Archimedes. He was a good friend of the king (Hiero II). The king asked Archimedes if he could figure out if a crown he had was made of pure gold or if it was alloyed with any silver. Archimedes was perplexed and, at first, did not know how to solve the problem. However, one day as he was taking a bath, he observed the water running over the bathtub. He suddenly realized in a moment of inspiration that since gold is more dense and heavier (per volume) than silver, gold represents a smaller volume than an equal weight of silver and would displace less water if placed into the bathtub. So he made another crown of pure gold and tested it against the crown in question to see whether they would displace the same amount of water or not. When Archimedes found the solution, he cried out, “Eureka, eureka!” (Greek for “I found it! I found it!”). By the way, the crown in question did have silver in it and displaced more water than the pure gold crown that Archimedes made.

Answer 3

I guess it is the density of an object. The densisty of pur and impour gold would be differenct and they will push out different amount of water thus letting Archemedds find out where it was pure or impure gold

Answer 4

That is the basics of the story. He took a bath a realized that different weights would displace different amounts of water.

Answer 5

It's really good

Answer 6

Interesting topic!