The James T. Callow Folklore Archive

Eureka

The story goes that in the 3rd Century B.C. King Hiero of
Syracuse gave a jeweller some gold to make a crown. The jeweller
did but the King suspected that he mixed the gold with base metal
and did not use all the gold. The king gave the crown to the local
scientist, Archimedes, whose job it was to determine if the
jeweller had cheated the king by mixing the gold with metal. In
order to solve this problem Archimedes had to find the density of
the crown. How could he measure density? One day when getting
into the bathtub he noticed the water level rose. He has an
inspiration and the answer. He jumped from the bath tub and ran
down the street naked shouting "Eureka" which means "I have found
it."
Archimedes realized that if the crown was pure gold it would
displace the same volume of water as an equal weight of gold. He
performed the experiment and found that the jeweller had in fact
cheated.

Where learned: MICHIGAN ; DETROIT

Date learned: 02-02-1992