#hiero ii of syracuse

[whencyclopedia]

Syracusia

The Syracusia was an ancient sailing vessel designed by Archimedes in the 3rd century BCE. She was fabled as being one of the largest ships ever built in antiquity and as having a sumptuous decor of exotic woods and marble along with towers, statues, a gymnasium, a library, and even a temple.

A New Approach

Ancient seafaring is usually perceived as a cabotage maritime navigation. The term comes from the French verb caboter meaning “traveling by the coast.” People of antiquity (Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans) usually sailed following the coastline and did not take the risk of going too far out on the high seas. Nevertheless, there are sources confirming that there were exceptions, and the first of them took place as far back as the 3rd century BCE.

In Sicily, under the ruling of king Hiero II of Syracuse (270 – 215 BCE), a ship with stunning dimensions was built. The material used for the construction of that giant boat equated to the material for 60 regular ships. What was more, that vessel was meant to leave the secure coastal lanes and to cross the Mediterranean Sea. The ship was given a name – Syracusia – and represented what could be called “the first liner of antiquity.”

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[hashirun]

naniniwala ka ba sa density?

In 250 BC, Hiero II, the King of Syracuse, suspected that his crown, which he commissioned a goldsmith to make, was not made of pure gold. He suspected that silver was added in making the crown, so he tasked Archimedes to verify but without damaging the crown.

Archimedes mulled on the problem for days. Finally, the solution occured to him while taking a bath. When water spilled as he submerged his body in the bath tub, he realized that the amount of water spilled was equal to the space his body occupied.

Archimedes knew that silver has less density than gold - any weight of silver occupies more space than its equivalent weight in gold. So what he did was weigh the crown, then he got a chunk of pure gold with the same weight as the crown.

Next, he submerged the chunk of gold in the water and took note how much water it displaced. Then he repeated the same step with the crown. He noticed that the crown displaced more water than the chunk of gold. While it was the same weight, the crown took up more space meaning it was made with material with less density.

And that was how Archimedes proved that the goldsmith was a scammer.

So my answer is yes, naniniwala ako sa density.

Also, when in doubt, take a bath. Eureka!

[gardenofkore]

The House of Hiero II of Syracuse (IV-III century BC)

check here for the Women of the House of Hiero II of Syracuse

check here for the related Epirote branch of the House of Agathocles of Syracuse (III century BC)

[classicalmonuments]

Altar of Hieron (Great Altar of Syracuse)

Syracuse, Sicily

3rd century BCE

195.8 m. in length (!!!)

It was built in the Hellenistic period by King Hiero II and is the largest altar known from antiquity.

The structure is aligned roughly north-north-west to south-east-east, and is located in the Neapolis, slightly to the southeast of the Greek theatre. Almost nothing except the foundations of the structure survive today. The structure was partly built from masonry blocks and partially carved from the living bedrock. The altar itself is 20.85 metres wide and 195.8 metres long (exactly one Doric stade). It sits on a crepidoma with three steps - at base this is 199.07 metres long and 22.51 metres wide. This makes it the largest altar known from the ancient world.

The upper surface of the altar was divided lengthwise into two levels of different heights: the western half was perhaps 6.06 metres high, and the eastern half was significantly taller, rising to a height of perhaps 10.68 metres. There was a cornice and a Doric triglyph frieze running around the top of each level. The whole structure was covered in plaster, which was used to smooth out imperfections in the stone and for the fine decorative details. The overall structure of the altar mimics that of small fire altars which are common votive offerings in Sicily.

There were stairways on the eastern side of the altar at the northern and southern ends, which led up to the lower level of the structure. Each of the staircases had an entranceway which was supported by two telamones. The feet of one of the norther one telamones are still in situ. It is unclear whether it was possible to access the higher level of the structure.

The altar was part of a larger complex. Below the structure, on the eastern side, there was a natural grotto, about 18 metres deep which contained votive offerings, some of which were deposited in the Archaic and Classical periods, long before the altar was built. To the west of the altar there was a rectangular open space with a water-proofed basin in the centre, surrounded by a u-shaped stoa. A propylon on the western side of this compound allowed access to both the open space and thus to the altar itself. In Augustan times, this open space was planted with trees in order to turn it into a sacred grove.

[opportunistic-chicanery]

Reposting this from my personal because I didn’t use the Cyberchase tag for it last year and this is important. 

Some of you might know Hacker’s first name is Hieronymus (said in episode 4: Sensible Flats). It’s most likely a reference to this guy. The wiki page even sounds exactly like Hacker.

The guys is from Syracuse which was also the hometown of Archimedes who also lived during this era. And it turns out Archimedes was a relative of Hieronymus’s grandfather, Hiero II.

Why is this important? Well Archimedes is in this show too if you’ll remember.

You can even see the family resemblance! Notice the eyes, nose and hands. They even both wear bowties if that means anything.

But there’s more. If you look at crowd shots of Mount Olympus, you can see a lot of borgs who resemble Marbles.

Notice the lightbulb hats/heads. If you Google ‘Greek Marbles’ this is what comes up.

A bunch of Greek sculptures REMOVED from Greece and that are now in ENGLAND. And Marbles has a British(?) accent. His Canadian voice actor sounds like he’s attempting one anyways.

And if that doesn’t convince you that they’re connected, in the Wikipedia page, it says this:

Lord Byron is the father of Ada Lovelace who is ALSO in the show.

But this is not as deep as it goes. If you’ve ever wondered where Sleight O’Hand comes from and how a shape could be Marbles’s nephew, the answer is Archimedes. Although the show never states that the two are brothers, they do seem to have a close working relationship. However, the real tell to me is that Archimedes and Sleight are the only characters with Irish accents (that I can remember). And they’re both shapes based on triangles.

Hope this blew your mind. I’m pretty mind blown right now.

[lazdona]

The Syracusia was a ship designed by Archimedes for Hiero II of Syracuse. A sort of ancient Titanic, sources describe it as having a garden, a library, a temple, a gymnasium, and guard towers. Once built, it was so large that Hiero realised that very few harbours could hold it. It was renamed the Alexandria and sent to its namesake port as a gift to Ptolemy III, whereby it was lost to history. https://ift.tt/2RJwhLF

[oliverarditi]

Journey’s end

Eight kilometres to the north, and many lifetimes away from Noto, lie the remains of its corpse. Here was journey’s end for the continuous relay that connected Jesuits, merchants, nobles, criminals, prisoners, artisans, guardsmen and peasants to the Iron Age Sicel people, after whom Sicily is named, Noto’s founders; to Daedalus, who stayed there after his flight across the Ionian Sea; to Hercules, who rested there after capturing the Cretan Bull; to Hieros II, King of Syracuse, to whom the Romans ceded the city in 243 B.C.E.; to the long reign and slow decline of Rome; to the final redoubt of the Arabs in Sicily, from whom the Normans conquered Noto in 1091, sealing their seizure of the island. Here is all the contingency and obligation, of which the new Noto, with its Baroque lattice of false novelty laid across the land with a surveyor’s rule, likes to imagine it is free.

Entering through Noto Antica’s still-grand stone gateway, which pierces a remaining fragment of sturdy wall with an aperture too narrow for two carriages to pass, feels a little like passing through a door in a scenery flat, to discover that the building you have entered exists only from the outside, only in the imagination. Within, low walls chaperone the roadway, and the castle looms to the right, but all is crumbling and desolate; the civic pride once invested here, and still promised by the gate, has been withdrawn and placed in the care of another broker to the south. The earthquake of 1693, which devastated southeastern Sicily and killed sixty-thousand, is a horizon which divides Noto’s history, with apparently absolute closure, into two halves. But to be free of ones history is to be unmade: the new, eighteenth-century Noto, the perfect dream of its burghers, is not founded on a blank slate, but on a willed forgetting. The city’s memory has been sealed in an attic and denied, but it will not be excised; nature is reclaiming its own, but masonry has heroic powers of recollection, and among the dust, the scrabbly undergrowth, the gangs of lop-eared goats clattering after their bell-toting alphas, can be found the ball and chain that tethers the later city to its past.

Not for the first time in our visit to Sicily, Il Trionfo della Morte is enacted literally in the remains of Noto Antica. In the chamber at the base of an ill-maintained, but still standing tower of the castle, graffiti proclaim the grievances and identities of those once imprisoned there; but the buildings of the Jesuit campus further along the ridge are tumbled and anonymous, no longer distinct from the remains of any lesser churches or secular palazzi. Here death repeats the lesson it has taught since we first subjected the weak to the strong, and that we have stubbornly refused to learn: none of our wealth, status or power makes a blind bit of difference in the final reckoning. And if there is great beauty in the works commanded by the mighty, it is everyone’s, it cannot be hoarded, it is beautiful only inasmuch as it is seen.

Here in Noto Antica beauty emerges in the space between the seen and the unseen, in the form of a desolate melancholy that hangs in the air like dust; the Baroque figuration that can be seen in the ruins of the city’s palazzi resonates with the imagined presence of its lost cityscape, and the bustling of its daily life. In the new Noto, there is an amnesia that brings a kind of stillness to the city, a stasis, a death born of perfection; in the old, there is physical silence and emptiness, but it is busy with memory. This is where we made our own journey’s end in Sicily, the last site we visited in our brief sojourn on an island at the centre of what once seemed the whole world, before we returned to our own island at its periphery.

[gracemorales]

Bibliography

Archimedes was born in 287 B.C. in the port of Syracuse, Sicily. His father was Phidias, who was an astronomer. “Archimedes used dust, ashes or any other available surface to draw his geometric figures.” He used to get so engaged in his work that sometimes he forgot to eat. Archimedes lived for 75 years. “Except for the period of his life where he attended school in Alexandria at Euclid's, Archimedes spent all his life at Syracuse.”Archimedes achieved so much fame because of his relation to King Hiero II and Gelon (son of King Hiero II). He was a  close friend of Gelon and helped Hiero solve complex problems with ease,thoroughly amazing his friend. “Archimedes died in 212 B.C. during the Second Punic war, when Syracuse was captured by the Roman forces after a two year siege.” Archimedes was researching a mathematical diagram, when a Roman soldier ordered him to meet General Marcus (who was engaged in the siege of Syracuse). But Archimedes refused saying that he had to finish his diagram. Furious, the Roman soldier killed Archimedes. “Another popular theory regarding Archimedes' death is that he was killed while actually surrendering to the Romans.” This source is credible because it is Published by an University. It is also credible because it is a combination of 6 different credible websites.

[9godsnet]

SyraCruise ™️

The world’s first Cruise Liner was designed by the Ancient Greek Archimedes and built around 240 BC by Archias of Corinth… Archimedes (287-212 BCE) was a Greek mathematician and mechanical engineer, a pioneer in both fields, many centuries ahead of his contemporaries. In Sicily, under the ruling of the king Hiero II of Syracuse (270 – 215 BCE), a ship with stunning dimensions was built. The…

[coolancientstuff]

The Altar of Hieron (Italian: Ara di Ierone) or the Great Altar of Syracuse is a monumental grand altar in the ancient quarter of Neapolis in Syracuse, Sicily. It was built in the Hellenistic period by King Hiero II and is the largest altar known from antiquity.

The altar is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, who attributes its construction to Hiero II. Stylistic analysis of the sculptural fragments from the altar confirms this, showing that they were made at the same time as the third phase of the nearby Greek theatre, which belongs after 235 BC. The votive deposit in the natural grotto under the eastern side of the altar shows that the area was already a sacred site in the Archaic period, not long after the city of Syracuse was established.[2]

One argument suggests that the altar was dedicated to Zeus Eleutherios (Zeus the Liberator) and was used to celebrate the Eleutheria festival, which commemorated the expulsion of the last Deinomenid tyrant, Thrasybulus of Syracuse in 466 and feature the sacrifice of 450 bulls.[3] The size of this sacrifice would explain the scale of the altar. Caroline Lehmler questions most aspects of this reconstruction. She argues that the altar was dedicated to Olympian Zeus, on the grounds that Zeus Eleutherios was associated with the overthrow of autocrats and Hieron II was a monarch himself and is not otherwise known to have cultivated Zeus Eleutherios, but is known to have carried out several other public works honouring Olympian Zeus. Lehmler stresses, however that the two names are different epithets of the same deity, rather than distinct gods. Lehmler also questions whether sacrifices were carried out on the altar itself, since it would be difficult to get animals up the narrow stairways. She suggests that the animals were slaughtered in the courtyard area and then the parts of the animal that were allotted to the gods were carried up the stairs to be burnt on the altar.[2]

Other suggestions, not necessarily mutually exclusive, are that the altar, as well as the nearby theatre, played a role in meetings of the League of the Sicilians which was placed under Hiero's control after the First Punic War,[4] or that it was built for the five hundredth anniversary of Syracuse's foundation. At a more general level it served to aggrandise Hiero, as its builder, demonstrating his wealth and piety. In this, it represented the culmination of a long Sicilian Greek tradition of monumental altars - the 54.5 metre long altar of the fifth-century Temple of Olympian Zeus at Agrigento is an important precursor.[2][5]

[thaissa1918]

This is, Vladyko Theodore. He grew up in, Tsar Nicholas II Romanov's Palace and grew up as a young playmate to Tsavich Alexis. His father was a physicist for the Tsar. After the Romanov's were taken prisoners before they were executed at point blank range, HRH Alexandra Romanov possessed the beard of, Saint Sarofov of Sarov and she snuck it to him. This is a photograph of me on the left of him in the Russian Monastery. I gave this photograph to the Romanov Historical Society because it was the last photograph of him alive. He fled and studied at a secret monastery called, Valam for years. He was a miracle worker and the President of Renault Oil Company in, France, put him in his Will when he died to conduct his funeral. He came to conduct the funeral and after the man being dead for over 48 hours, Vladyko Theodore went into the room with him dead and the rest of the persons present saw a bright uncreated light and after 24 hours, the dead man walked out perfectly healthy with, Vladyko. It is documented and well known in the Russian Church. People around the world including the Romanov's have asked me for his last photos. He is the only person that has raised a man from the dead since Lazarus in the New Testament. He was my Spiritual Father for over 20 years and recently died about one decade ago and is buried in, West Milford New Jersey, USA.

All About My Spiritual Father (+) Elder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov Caves

The Noetic Pilgrim, A Kenotic Soul November 21, 2008, 3:32 am Filed under: Patristic Vita Elder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov Caves

Elder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov CavesElder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov Caves Elder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov Caves, myself and Gregory (Cantor) (+November 8, 1996)

On this day according to the traditional Church Calendar, on the vigil of the Martyr St. Theodore of Amasea, we commemorate the falling asleep of schema-Bishop Theodore (Irtel) at the Abbey of the Holy Name in West Milford, New Jersey in America. Elder Theodore’s repose at the Abbey was in fulfillment of staretz Justinian of Valaam’s prophesy regarding major future events in our Elder’s earthly life. Elder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov Caves The year following the canonization of St Seraphim of Sarov, Elder Theodore was born George Irtel in 1904. His father had been a renowned physicist in the Russian Royal Court and a friend of St Tsar Nicholas II. His Sketch of George Irtel from Orthodox Word

Sketch of George Irtel from Orthodox Word

father’s connections permitted young George to be one of Tsarević Alexei Romanov’s playmate. During the Bolshevik Revolution, George fled across Siberia on foot to Irkutsk. Then learning his mother still in Justinian of Valaam

Justinian of Valaam

Moscow, he walked back across Siberia. He had been arrested in 1920; afterwards, in 1924 he entered Valaam Monastery as a novice. It was there that Novice George came under the spiritual care of the staretz Justinian. Due to godless incursion into the vicinity of Valaam, Novice George moved on to the Pskov Caves Monastery in Estonia.

Under the care of the Elder Schema-Archimandrite Simeon, Monk George was clothed in the small schema and renamed Sergei (Sergius). Starezt Simeon of Pskov Caves

Starezt Simeon of Pskov Caves

Stavrophore-monk Sergei was among the many Russian émigrés to Paris in the 1930s. At the Sorbonne he earned an advanced degree in Philosophy and was ordained to the priesthood in 1934. It has been said that there were three men consecrated to the episcopacy in secret. Fr Sergei was one of the three. Secret consecrations are outside the norm in Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, these elevations were conducted because there was suspicion that the NKVD (predecessor of the KGB) had targeted certain Russian hierarchs in Europe for assassination. While in France, Fr Sergei had frequent fellowship with St. Archbishop John Maximovitć during his tenure there. Elder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov Caves Throughout his youth Fr Sergei had various spiritual experiences which provided him guidance in his life. Now his sanctity began to be a benefit to others. Following an incident that began to bring much attention and fame to him, Fr Sergei desired to return to Russia.

True to his monastic vow of obedience he refused to act on his own will. Rather, he had written to Fr Sergei Irtel

Fr Sergei Irtel

St Silouan on Mt Athos. In reply, Fr Sergei was forbidden to return to Russia, “for there you will certainly die. You must go to America where God has much for you to do”. In 1946 Hieromonk Sergei arrived in New York City. It has been reported that he taught at St. Tikhon Orthodox Pastoral Seminary in South Canaan for two years. Thereafter labored in Canada with St Nikolai Velimirović. In 1950 he was sent to Spruce Island, Alaska. According to Orthodox Word magazine (St. Herman Brotherhood: 1996, No. 187-188): “They lived in a large, rotting storage house on the very shores of Monks’ Lagoon, while in the dense spruce forest, on the site of St. Herman’s cell, Archimandrite Gerasim lived in solitude. The gusty wind off the open sea and the constantly overcast, rainy weather stirred up sorrowful thoughts linked with the woeful state of 20th century monasticism. In total solitude, more cut off than in any hermitage on old Valaam, which was at that time swallowed up by the communist hell, the new monks of New Valaam were naturally carried in thought to Valaam, and, remembering their past instructors, they lived by their instructions.”

While in Alaska he was clothed in the Great Schema and given the name of St. Theodore. Apparently due to health, Hiero-schemamonk Theodore was forced to leave Alaska where from he arrived in El Paso, Texas. We know that he had been utilized by the Russian Metropolia as a “supply priest” and was often “on loan” to other jurisdictions where there was a need for a priest. It has been documented that Fr Sergei Irtel had served the fledgling Greek Mission in Los Vegas having Divine Liturgy in a local Episcopalian Church in 1958. The Russian Patriarchal parish of St. John Chrysostom in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan was served by Fr Sergei in December 1961 and again in 1964.

From El Paso, Texas, Elder Theodore made his way to Juarez, Mexico. There he was not a bishop, enjoyed neither status nor glory. Much like Bolshevik Russia, Elder Theodore had to avoid getting Elder Theodore

Elder Theodore

arrested by the anti-clerical Mexican police. There in Juarez he shared the poverty of the village folks. He labored to house and feed them. As a simple priest-monk he evangelized and ministered to the people. Gathered a small monastic following, never ceased praying and interceding for those who came to visit or sent letters begging for his prayers on their behalf. We could speak of the many miracles of healing, resurrecting the dead, the gifts of clairvoyance and bi-location attributed to our Elder. But it is the charism of monastic obedience, humility, unceasing prayer and service (love) towards those in need that greatly marked Elder Theodore’s holiness. Vladyka was buried, unembalmed according to Orthodox tradition, three days after his repose. On this third day his body showed no sign of corruption.

The Hermitage Cell of St. John the Theologian has been given the monastic obedience to gather what information is available on Schema-Bishop Theodore (Irtel). As we gather and discern such information regarding his life, ministry, fellowship, miracles and various other wonder-workings we shall then make them known for the edification and upbuilding of the Church. If YOU knew Elder Theodore at one time or another, please share with us your experience and knowledge of him.

Write to us via e-mail or by postal mail:

Theodore Irtel Research Project Hermitage of St. John the Theologian 110 Griffiths Street No.9 Syracuse, New York 13208

Blessed Elder Theodore, pray for us! Blessed Elder Theodore, pray for us! Like · Reply · November 24 at 1:35pm

[gardenofkore]

The Epirote descendants of Agathocles of Syracuse and his second wife Alkeia

AGATHOCLES II or AGATHOCLES Junior (Ἀγαθοκλῆς), son Agathocles by his second wife Alkeia. Nothing is known about his life up to the moment his father sent him to Macedonia, at the court of Demetrius I Poliorcetes. This voyage had been organised with the intent to present the younger Agathocles as his father's heir and to form an alliance with Macedonia. Indeed Demetrius received him with all the honours, dressed him in regal robes and gave him splendid gifts. Back in Syracuse the old tyrant officially introduced his son as his successor in front of the people. The younger Agathocles was then sent to the Syracusan encampment, at that time stationed near Etna. Up to that time, the army had been led by Arcagathus, son in turn of the late Arcagathus (not to be confused with the Egyptian one), firstborn of the tyrant. As soon as Arcagathus received his grandfather's order to hand over the army's command to the younger Agathocles, he devised a plan to kill both his grandfather and half-uncle and seize the power. As he instructed his collaborator Menon to poison the tyrant, Arcagathus invited his uncle and, after having got him drunk, murdered him. Agathocles' body was thrown into the sea and, after some time, the tide washed him ashore, where he was recognised and brought to his dying father. Indeed the poison didn't kill immediately the older Agathocles. As soon as the tyrant found out what had happened, he disinherited his grandson and proclaimed as his successor the people of Syracuse, thus abolishing the monarchy and re-established the democracy.

LANASSA (Λάνασσα) see

ALEXANDER II (Αλέξανδρος), son of Pyrrhus I and Lanassa, daughter of the tyrant Agathocles. Alexander succeeded his father as the King of Epirus in 272 BC. He managed to drive Antigonus II Gonatas out of Macedonia, thus finishing his late father's job, but was in turn driven out of his country by Antigonus' son, Demetrius II. Alexander then took refuge among the Acarnians and, with their help and that of his subjects still loyal to him, he recovered Epirus. He married his half-sister Olympias II (daughter of Pyrrhus' first wife, Antigone), who bore him three children: Pyrrhus, Phthia and Ptolemy. Alexander died in 242 BC and was succeeded by his son Phyrrus, although Olympias briefly assumed the regency on account of her sons' young age. She ruled over Macedonia until Pyrrhus reached adulthood.

PYRRHUS II (Πύρρος), son of Alexander II and Olympias II. He succeeded his father when he died in 242 BC, although he effectively started to rule when he reached adulthood. He fathered two daughters (Deidameia and Nereis) with an unnamed woman. Pyrrhus died in 237 BC and was succeeded by his brother Ptolemy.

PHTHIA (Φθια), daughter of Alexander II and Olympias II. Following her father's death, and before 239 BC, Phthia was married by her mother the Regent to Demetrius II of Macedonia. Olympias intended to build up an alliance with Macedonia to contrast the Aetolian League. Nothing else is known about her.

PTOLEMY (Πτολεμαῖος), son of Alexander II and Olympias II. He was called after his late uncle, his mother's full-brother, who probably died in childbirth. Ptolemy succeeded his brother Pyrrhus, but died in 235 BC, after having ruled for three years. He was in the middle of a military expedition when he fell sick and died (although, according to Polyaenus, he was murdered). It is said his mother died soon after of heartbreak since she couldn't bear to lose his sons in such a short period of time. Ptolemy was succeeded by his son, Pyrrhus.

PYRRHUS III (Πύρρος), son of Ptolemy and an unnamed woman. He was only a child when he became King of Epirus, after his father's sudden death. Two years later, Pyrrhus was killed in a coup that had the intent to abolish the monarchy and institute the republic. He was succeeded by his cousin Deidameia.

DEIDAMEIA II or DEIDAMIA (Δηιδάμεια), daughter of Pyrrhus II and an unnamed woman. She succeeded her cousin Pyrrhus III as sovereign of Epirus. Unfortunately for Deidamia, she found herself in the middle of the revolution. She fled to Ambracia and, when  offered clemency if she surrendered, she capitulated. She sought refuge in the temple of Artemis as soon as it was clear the Epirotes wouldn't find peace until they were sure they had wiped out the entire royal family. Heedless of the sacrality of the place, the mob killed Deidamia in the sanctuary itself. She was the last Aeacid sovereign of Epirus. After her death, the republic was instituted.

NEREIS (Νηρηΐς) see

HARMONIA (Ἁρμονία) see

HIERONYMUS (῾Ιερώνυμος), son of Gelo of Syracuse and Nereis, daughter of Pyrrhus III of Epirus. Hieronymus was born in Syracuse in 231 BC. After Gelo died in 216 BC, his father, the tyrant Hiero II, named his grandson as his heir. Fearing for Syracuse' fate, Hiero had entrusted his grandson's preparation to numerous tutors, hoping they would correct his weak and (apparently) depraved character. To guide the youngster, at least at the beginning of his rulership, the tyrant had created a council of 15 trusted men, which counted his sons-in-law, Adranodoros and Zoippus. Hiero died in 215 BC and, as he had arranged, he was succeeded by the 15-years old Hieronymus. Polybius describes the new tyrant as “unstable and feather-brained” and, according to the historian, he shocked everyone by marrying a prostitute and giving her the title of queen. The immature tyrant found himself in the middle of the internal strife between the pro-Carthaginian faction and the pro-Roman faction. The former one was represented mainly by Andranodorus and Zoippus, who managed to weaken their enemies and easily manipulated their nephew-in-law. An alliance was agreed between Syracuse and Carthage, represented by Hannibal. According to this treaty, the island of Sicily was going to be ideally divided by the river Himera into two areas. The western part would belong to Carthage, the eastern part to Syracuse. Soon after Hieronymus asked for the western part too and, fearing to lose such an important ally, the Carthaginian caved in. In return, the tyrant had to raise an army and conquer all those Sicilian cities which still hadn't been conquered by either Carthage or Syracuse and were under Rome’s influence. Hieronymus quickly obliged and prepared to Leontinoi, where the pro-Roman faction was dominant. These people feigned to peacefully welcoming him, but while Hieronymus was walking through the city's streets, a group of conspirators attacked him and stabbed him to death. It was 214 BC and Hieronymus had ruled for merely 13 months. He was the last basileus of Sicily. Syracuse will be conquered by Rome in 212 BC.

see here the Egyptian descendants of Agathocles

see here the Syracusan descendants of Agathocles

[randomlyscientific]

EUREKA

This word is one of the most famous words in the scientific community. Every man who discovers something great shouts it out loud in the enthusiasm, feeling the spirit of naked Archimedes inside him. Hm... More than the fact as to why he ran shouting" Eureka”, (which actually means I’ve found it) people are bothered about him running naked in the streets of Syracuse. I would’t deny the fact that it was something odd and unusual to do for a man of his stature, why he did it is much more interesting a story by itself.

The whole story that we see today is based on what we know by Vitruvius’s narration of the incident. Hiero II, the ruler of Syracuse ordered for a crown made of pure gold. The goldsmith was paid a good fortune for his work, but after a few days Hiero heard rumours about the goldsmith mixing equal weight of silver instead of gold. The crown was to be offered to the gods and wasn’t supposed to be harmed or distorted which would mean a disrespect to the gods. Someone had to unravel the mystery and who better would he think of , other than Archimedes who was already being celebrated for his works in math and physics.Archimedes asked for a few days time.Now coming to the incident often heard, he for his daily bath entered a public bath. As his body sank into the water, the water level rised. In a flash he realised something, the volume of water displaced should be equal to the volume of his body immersed in water. By this, he knew he could solve the problem given by Hiero, and ran naked in the streets of Syracuse shouting EUREKA. 

Considering the possibilties of this incident in real, even if Hiero’s crown weighed a kilogram, the water that would be displaced by the same amount of silver would be very less for the ancients to measure.This objection was first raised by Galilieo who thought it was more reasonable to say Archimedes used his own principle on buoyancy to discover this fraudulent work of the goldsmith. 

There are 3 methods in which the problem can be solved

The one proposed by Vitruvius,rather narrated by Vitruvius as proposed by Archimedes. He took a container and immersed the exact amount of gold given by Hiero, and then did the same with crown and by the difference in the water level recognised the fraud. However, the difference in the water level would not be more than half a millimeter.(Considering a crown of 1 kg and an adulteration of around 35% silver)

He could have taken a container, placed the exact weight of gold given by Hiero and filled it with water to the rim. Now taking out the gold, he could have placed the crown inside it. If there was water spilt, the goldsmiths’s true colours would be revealed.

The more convenient, reasonable method, for solving the problem would be to balance the same weight of gold and the crown on a beam balance and immerse both the crown and the gold in a container containing water. Now the difference in the apparant weights would amount to be atleast 15g. This would have been easily measured by Archimedes who was a genius with levers and with his knowledge on buoyancy.

By this I think I’ve done some justice to this naked genius who ran on the streets of Syracuse.

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What is Mathematics

Mathematics (from Greek: μάθημα, máthēma, 'knowledge, study, learning') includes the study of such topics as quantity (number theory),[1] structure (algebra),[2] space (geometry),[1] and change (analysis).[3][4][5] It has no generally accepted definition.

Mathematics is essential in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine, finance, and the social sciences. Applied mathematics has led to entirely new mathematical disciplines, such as statistics and game theory. Mathematicians engage in pure mathematics (mathematics for its own sake) without having any application in mind, but practical applications for what began as pure mathematics are often discovered later.

Archimedes is considered the father of mathematics because of his notable inventions in mathematics and science. He was in the service of King Hiero II of Syracuse. At that time, he developed many inventions. ... Through this method, Archimedes established the relationship between spheres and cylinders.

We use maths in our daily lives

Robotics.

Computers.

Video games.

Astronomy.

Astrophysics.

Cosmology.

Weather prediction.

Rocket science.

Clothes designing.

Etc.

Literally every single object we see is made is done by help of maths.Every science, every field has mathematics at its base. It is one the most important things in the universe.

[kanvashidup-blog]

Penemuan Hukum Archimedes

Orientasi

Archimedes adalah ilmuan terbesar sebelum Newton.Ia dilahirkan di kota pelabuhan bernama Syracuse di Pulau Sisilia, sebelah selatan Italia, pada tahun 287 SM. Ia memulai kegiatan pengembangan keilmuannnya di kota Alexandria, Mesir, tepatnya di sekolah yang didirikan oleh matematikawan Yunani, Euclid. Tak lama setelah itu, ia pulang untuk mengabdikan dirinya di kota kelahirannya. Ayahnya adalah seorang ahli bintang yang bernama Phidias. Archimedes juga kenal dekat dengan raja Hiero II yang memerintah di Syracuse pada masa itu.

Archimedes dikenal sebagai ahli matematika Yunani (terutama geometri), ahli fisika (terutama mekanika , statistika, dan hidrostatika), ahli optika, ahli astronomi, warga Negara Sisilia, pengarang , dan penemu. Ia mendapat julukan bapak IPA eksperimental karena mendasarkan penemuannya pada eksperimen. Kebenaran penemuan-penemuannya telah ia buktikan dengan eksperimen.

Peristiwa 1

Pada waktu itu yang jadi raja Hieron II. Pada suatu hari Hieron II yang saat itu menjadi raja di Syracuse, menyuruh seorang pandai emas untuk membuatkan mahkotanya. Hieron merasa bahwa pandai emas itu melakukan kecurangan. Mahkota itu tidak terbuat dari emas murni tapi dari campuran emas dan perak. Akhirnya, Hieron pun menyuruh Archimedes membuktikan kecurangan pandai emas itu tanpa merusak mahkota tersebut. Berhari-hari Archimedes berpikir keras. Ia tidak tahu cara membuktikan kecurangan pandai emas. Waktu itu belum ada alat elektronik yang dapat mendeteksi apakah sebuah benda terbuat dari emas murni atau emas campuran.

Peristiwa 2

Ketika kepala Archimedes terasa panas karena terlalu banyak berpikir,ia masuk ke tempat mandi umum. Ia membuka pakaian dan masuk ke bak mandi yang penuh dengan air. Archimedes menyadari lengannya terapung diatas air. Sebuah ide kemudian terbesit di benaknya. Dia menarik tangannya kedalam air dan dia merenggangkan lengannya. Lengannya dengan sendiri mengapung kembali ke atas. Kemudian dia mencoba berdiri dari bak, level air menjadi menyusut, kemudian dia duduk kembali, level air meningkat kembali. Dia berbaring, air naik lebih tinggi lagi, dan dia merasa lebih ringan. Dia berdiri, level air menurun dan dia merasa dirinya lebih berat. Air harusnya telah mendorong dia keatas sehingga dia merasa ringan.

Komplikasi

Tiba-tiba ia bangkit, lupa mengenakan pakaian, sambil telanjang bulat lari sepanjang jalan menuju rumahnya. Kepada istrinya ia berteriak, Eureka! Eureka! Artinya, Sudah kutemukan! Sudah Kutemukan! Apa yang ia temukan? Ia menemukan nama hukum Archimedes ,yang bunyinya: “Sebuah benda yang dicelupkan sebagian atau seluruhnya ke dalam zat cair akan mendapat gaya keatas seberat zat cair yang didesak oleh benda itu”. Dengan hukum itu ia bermaksud membuktikan kecurangan pandai emas.

Dirumahnya ia melakukan percobaan selanjutnya. Dia kemudian mengambil sebuah batu dan sebalok kayu yang memiliki ukuran sama ke dalam bak dan merendamkan mereka kedua-duanya. Batu tenggelam tetapi terasa ringan. Dia harus menekan kayu supaya tenggelam. Itu artinya air harus menekan ke atas dengan gaya yang relatif terhadap jumlah air yang tergantikan oleh ukuran objek daripada berat dari objek. Seberat apa objek itu dirasakan di air mempengaruhi kepadatan objek.Ini membuat Archimedes mengerti bagaimana memecahkan masalah raja. Dia kembali ke raja. Kuncinya adalah kepadatan. Jika mahkota ini terbuat dari logam bukan emas, dia dapat memiliki berat yang sama tetapi akan memiliki kepadatan yang berbeda sehingga akan menumpahkan jumlah air yang berbeda. Mahkota dan sebuah emas yang beratnya sama di masukkan ke sebuah mangkok berisi air. Mahkotanya ternyata menumpahkan air lebih banyak sehingga terbukti mahkota itu adalah palsu.

Resolusi

Kecurigaan Raja terbukti, pembuat mahkota itu telah berbohong. Archimedes membuktikan bahwa mahkota itu dicampuri dengan perak. Akhirnya, si tukang pun dihukum mati. Archimedes pun menghabiskan sisa hidupnya di Sisilia. Ia tidak pernah bekerja di kantor mana pun. Meskipun begitu, ia mengisi hari-harinya dengan melakukan penelitian dan eksperimen. Archimedes tewas terbunuh ketika bangsa Romawi menyerbu kota itu secara tiba-tiba. Waktu itu Archimedes sedang menggambar diagram matematika di pasir. Konon, Archimedes menyerang penjajah dengan berkata, Jangan ganggu diagramku.

http://pakarfluida.blogspot.com/2015/06/archimedes-287-212-sm-sejarah-penemuan.html

https://informasiana.com/sejarah-penemuan-hukum-archimedes/#

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Chronomorph

This post is based on Archimedes’s Chronophone and its Motivations, which I urge you to read now if you haven’t. Properly understood, the chronophone teaches us why it was so hard for Archimedes to arrive at beliefs that our own culture holds to be obvious (like “slavery is wrong”).

I like it because it could be a powerful tool to derive an intuitive measure of the change-inducing potential of an idea. To come up with cognitive strategies you could transmit to Archimedes to get him to do the things you consider good, you have to think of the things future generations would consider obvious and good, but which our own generation thinks incorrect and possibly outrageous. And in reverse, it serves as a test to measure the cultural impact of a cognitive strategy you’re following. Talking about “prediction markets” is sufficiently non-obvious in our culture that it might get Archimedes to, say, think about tax reforms, but getting him to change his mind about slavery would require coming up with something worth centuries of progress in our time. “Make money by inventing technological gadgets” is so obvious in our time that it would probably just come out as “conquer enemy territories”.

On first glance, it would seem that the notion of transmitting cognitive strategies rather than beliefs is simple enough to understand:

You cannot suggest, for example, that women should have the vote.  Maybe you could persuade Archimedes of Syracuse of the issue, and maybe not; but it is a moot point, the chronophone will not transmit the advice.  Or rather, it will transmit the advice, but it will come out as:  "Install a tyrant of great personal virtue, such as Hiero II, under whose rule Syracuse experienced fifty years of peace and prosperity."  That's how the chronophone avoids transmitting overly anachronistic information - it transmits cognitive strategies rather than words.  If you follow the policy of "Check my brain's memory to see what my contemporary culture recommends as a wise form of political organization", what comes out of the chronophone is the result of Archimedes following the same policy of looking up in his brain what his era lauds as a wise form of political organization.

However, the problem with transmitting cognitive strategies instead of beliefs is that a cognitive strategy is derived from other strategies, and that chain usually has many levels. For instance, if I want to transmit “donate money to an effective charity”, what cognitive strategy do I transmit? How do I even identify my own cognitive strategy here? To oversimplify it a bit, it looks like:

Belief: “earn to give to the most effective charities”

strategy 0: “read widely to understand current thinking on effective altruism”

strategy A1: “seek to help the less privileged”

strategy A2: “understand my own (axiomatic) morality, whatever its origins”

strategy B1: “apply rational strategies since they help me win”

…

It’s cognitive strategies all the way down. Multiple strategies can combine (creating branching) to give rise to a new strategy, and strategies may feed back into each other (creating loops). Each of these levels will have a different cultural equivalent in Archimedes’ time because they have different cultural status in our time, so how does the chronophone select which level to transmit? Or in less abstract terms, how do you really figure out the result of trying to communicate a particular piece of advice over the chronophone? Saying “donate money to an effective charity” could be arrived at using any (and probably all) of the cognitive strategies “try the advice of the last reasonable-sounding book you read”, “follow your culture’s best stance on your favourite school of ethics”, or even “figure out something useful to say into a chronophone”, all of which would produce different results at the other end.

To really get at the heart of what powers the chronophone, you need to bypass Archimedes altogether. Imagine that our scientists, inspired by the chronophone, invent a kind of temporal manipulation device (“chronomorph” for short) which lets you manipulate physical reality across time! If the chronomorph is focused on you, then whatever actions you take here will be transmitted across to an ancient version of you that will dutifully obey.

Unfortunately, the chronomorph is subject to the same restrictions of time travel as the chronophone, so actions are translated through culturally equivalent cognitive strategies (“chronomorphed” for short).

The important thing to understand about the chronophone is that it is functionally equivalent to the chronomorph – that is, no more or less powerful. If you can describe a strategy into the chronophone that would come out the other end as something that’s actually useful for Archimedes to hear, then you can always execute the same strategy in your time and achieve the same amount of change-relative-to-your-culture (“chronomorphic delta” for short). As a consequence, you can test the impact of anything you want to say into a chronophone by instead focusing a chronomorph on yourself, and actually executing that strategy to measure its delta in your own culture.

This makes it much clearer what the result of saying “donate to an effective charity” into a chronophone would be. If you actually did this in our culture, it’s sufficiently non-obvious that the marginal benefit you achieve can be quite large. As a cultural ideal, if large numbers of rich people started paying attention to this, any measure of lives saved and improved would show massive gains. Yet it’s something that’s been around for a while without really taking off, suggesting that people don’t respond to merely being aware of it. It also faces valid criticisms. Any belief that comes out of the chronophone will hold the same promises and be beset by the same problems, and that’s all you need to know. It almost doesn’t matter what cognitive strategy is used to arrive at this belief; indeed you can back-calculate the common strategy that, when applied in the two cultures, gives rise to those two beliefs.

When we say that a chronophone transmits strategies instead of beliefs, we’re obliquely getting at what’s really conserved – the chronomorphic delta – the impact that believing in, talking about, and implementing a cognitive strategy has.

So what kinds of beliefs/strategies are good candidates to transmit through a chronophone? Or equivalently, what actions should you take today, that could be chronomorphed into desirable outcomes in Archimedes’s time?

A basic principle of the chronophone is that to get nonobvious output, you need nonobvious input.  If you say something that is considered obvious in your home culture, it comes out of the chronophone as something that is considered obvious in Archimedes's culture.

Non-obvious is often a synonym for “weird”, “nerdy”, “socially unacceptable”, or even “subversive”, so the budding chronophonist must be prepared to cheerfully accept these labels. If you try to seek out especially those new ideas that are ignored, rejected, or suppressed by the mainstream, that’s probably fertile ground for finding good candidates. The chronophone is the bridge that transports the horror of slavery in Archimedes’s time into our own time, transmitted through invariant chronomorphic ignorance.

In Archimedes's time, slavery was thought right and proper; in our time, it is held an abomination.  If, today, you need to argue that slavery is bad, you can invent all sorts of moral arguments which lead to that conclusion - all sorts of justifications leap readily to mind.  If you could talk to Archimedes of Syracuse directly, you might even be able to persuade him to your viewpoint (or not).  But the really odd thing is that, at some point in time, someone must have turned against slavery - gone from pro-slavery to anti-slavery - even though they didn't start out wanting to persuade themselves against slavery.  By the time someone gets to the point of wanting to construct persuasive anti-slavery arguments, they must have already turned against slavery.  If you know your desired moral destination, you are already there.  Thus, that particular cognitive strategy - searching for ways to persuade people against slavery - can't explain how we got here from there, how Western culture went from pro-slavery to anti-slavery.

This gives us another clue: “searching for ways to persuade people against slavery” wouldn’t work in Archimedes time just as “searching for ways to persuade people against… umm… X” wouldn’t work in our time, because we don’t know what X is. If you wanted to chronomorph “figure out slavery is bad”, the action you would need to take here couldn’t be anything you already know is right. You have to start with your best guesses, and take step by blind step, always trying to course-correct, without knowing your destination.

So how could Archimedes have figured out that he should be anti-slavery, if he didn’t know his destination? How can you figure out truths about your world when you don’t already know them, when you don’t know others know, and when no one knows?

At a minimum, you need to admit your own ignorance, and acknowledge explicitly that many, if not most things in your culture will be recognised by future generations as bad. But you can’t stop there – the proper use of humility is to take specific actions in anticipation of your own errors.

How would you behave today if you knew you were being chronomorphed?

    Footnotes:

So how could Archimedes have figured out that he should be anti-slavery, if he didn’t know his destination?

Perhaps the first step would have been acknowledging explicitly that there were probably in his world that were non-obvious to his culture, and that future generations would recognise them as such. Then he could actively seek out philosophers of his time who were considered subversive, and try to understand their thinking. He could have been more wary of mainstream ideas, prodding and poking at them until one rung hollow. He could have enlisted his smartest friends to help, but also tried to talk to the least obvious sources, even a slave. Maybe if he biased more towards the non-obvious, towards the fringe, it would have helped.

This strategy isn’t the best, and maybe not even good enough (given how deeply entrenched slavery was), but it’s a start. In our time, the closest equivalent I can think of is something like CFAR.