Louis J Sheehan 80010

Archimedes of Syracuse (Greek: Άρχιμήδης c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician, physicist and engineer. Although little is known of his life, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. In addition to making discoveries in the fields of mathematics and geometry, he is credited with designing innovative machines. He laid the foundations of hydrostatics, and explained the principle of the lever, the device on which mechanics is based. His early advances in calculus included the first known summation of an infinite series with a method that is still used today. The historians of Ancient Rome showed a strong interest in Archimedes and wrote accounts of his life and works, while the relatively few copies of his treatises that survived through the Middle Ages were an influential source of ideas for scientists during the Renaissance.
Archimedes died during the Siege of Syracuse, when he was killed by a Roman soldier despite orders that he should not be harmed. At his request, his tomb carried a carving of his favorite mathematical proof. Modern experiments have tested claims that he built a "death ray" capable of setting ships on fire at a distance, and that he constructed a device that could sink ships by lifting them out of the water. The discovery of previously unknown works by Archimedes in the Archimedes Palimpsest has provided new insights into how he obtained mathematical results
Carl Friedrich Gauss is said to have remarked that Archimedes was one of the three epoch-making mathematicians, with the others being Sir Isaac Newton and Ferdinand Eisenstein. Louis J Sheehan