Archimedes was a native of Syracuse, Sicily, the son of the astronomer Pheidias. The many achievements accredited to him include: showing that the value of π lies between the values 3 10/71 and 3 1/7 (this he obtained by circumscribing and inscribing a circle with regular polygons having 96 sides); showing that the problem of squaring the circle and rectifying its circumference were equivalent; developing a number system based on powers of myriad (10,000) to deal with large numbers; and establishing methods for finding the area under a parabola, a result that needed the integral calculus of Gottfried von Leibnitz and Isaac Newton by 2,000 years. His name is also attached to many fundamental ideas in hydrostatics and the use of levers.

Little is known of his early life other than that he studied in Alexandria and became friends with Conon, with...