Who invented the law of displacement?

Answer 1

The mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse.

The most common story (which was first told by Vitruvius but doesn't pop up in Archimedes' known works) goes that King Hiero II had a votive crown forged for a temple, and he supplied the pure gold the goldsmith was to use. However, when he got the crown, the King asked Archimedes to determine whether the goldsmith had used all of the gold supplied or substituted silver for some of the gold. Archimedes couldn't melt the crown down into a regular shape to find its density, because he had to leave the crown intact, so he puzzled over the problem for some time. While taking a bath one day, he noticed that the water level rose as he stepped in, and realized that he could use this effect to solve the problem, and supposedly ran through the streets screeching "εὕρηκα!" (heureka!, Greek for "I've found it!") naked. When he performed the test with the crown, he found that the goldsmith had indeed substituted silver for some of the gold.

Answer 2

Archimedes came up with water displacement. The story is this, Xerxes, king of Persia, who had a lot of gold, wanted a solid gold crown made for him, so he sent his gold to someone who could make it into a crown. When he got the crown, Xerxes really liked it, but he was still suspicious that the crown wasn't solid gold, and that the man had stolen the rest of his gold. To see if it was solid gold, he told Archimedes to find out if it was solid gold, or some sort of alloy. Archimedes was going to melt it down so he could easily tell the volume of it and then get the density to match that of gold by dividing the volume by the mass, if the density wasn't the same as gold, then it obviously wasn't pure gold.

Despite this, Xerxes didn't want his crown melted just to see that, so he told Archimedes to figure out another way to do the same thing. Archimedes thought and thought, but couldn't come up with any way to measure the volume of such an irregularly shaped object as the crown. He decided to go to the Roman baths. When he put his legs into the bath, he noticed the level of water in the bath go up. Then he ran through the city shouting "Eureka! Eureka!". The reason for his joy was that he realized the water would rise when he put the crown, an irregularly shaped object like his legs, into the bath, the difference in water level would be the volume of the crown!

After testing the crown, and calculating the density and comparing it to that of pure gold, Archimedes found out the crown was in fact not pure gold, but that the smith had created an alloy, and taken the rest of the gold given to him by Xerxes. In the end, Xerxes got his gold back, Archimedes discovered water displacement as a form of measuring volume, and the smith got his head chopped off. That is where the discovery of water displacement came from.

Xerxes was not his. He is (Hyrvn II), and he is the king of Syracuse.

Xerxes was not his. He is (Hyrvn II), and he is the king of Syracuse.

Answer 3

Archimedes from Syracuse, a Greek scientist (approx. 287 BC - 212 BC)

Answer 4

The mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse.The most common story (which was first told by Vitruvius but doesn't pop up in Archimedes' known works) goes that King

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Answer 5

Archimedes; see the link below.

Answer 6

I think Mekay did!

Answer 7

Archimedes

Answer by Kelly Hyles

Answer 8

gege rrapi