Who is Archimedes?

Before anything else, there’s something I’d like to ask…

If you answered no, well, I didn’t either. That was until I joined the camp blog. Because of the blogging activity, I came across an article on Archimedes. I was amazed at how a person’s intellect can come up with ideas beyond our expectations and now, I’ll share the wealth.

Archimedes is considered as one of the three greatest mathematicians of all time. His greatest contributions to mathematics were on the field of Geometry. He wished to have a monument of a sphere enclosed by a cylinder as his tombstone.

With a cylinder and a sphere, he was able to discover such an important concept of spheres: its surface area.

Source: math.about.com

Some of his contributions are:

• Determined the exact value of pi.
• Principle of Bouyancy.
• Powers of ten or Scientific Notation.
• Volume of a Sphere
• Surface Area of a Sphere

More about Archimedes…

Archimedes –www.cs.drexel.edu

Tomb of Archimedes -www.math.nyu.edu

Archimedes: Discoveries -www.lycos.com

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http://www.cs.drexel.edu

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Discover Archimedes’ Discovery

Try this out:

Roll a gift wrapper around a ball, making a cylinder with a height equal to the diameter of the ball.

Unroll the cylinder and try to cover the ball with it.

Does it fit?

Did you know that Archimedes was the one who discovered that  a cylinder with the same diameter as a sphere, and a height with the same length as the diameter has equal surface areas? He identified the formula for this as:

4πr²

 

 

  

Know more: How the formula for the area of the sphere was  derived

courtesy of: thinkquest.com

 

 

I noticed that the formula for the surface area of a sphere is equal to four times the area of a circle… I researched about it and look what I found!

Watch this!

 

Amazing right?

courtesy of: BabelMath

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What’s the big deal?

Look at these pictures: O.o

Balls, globe, fish bowl, water tank…. What do these pictures have in common?

Yes, obviously they’re all spherical in shape.^_^

But how do you make each one?

Surely, you start with the materials. How much material is to be used?

Now that’s when Archimedes’ discovery of the surface area of the sphere is applied!

Imagine: If Archimedes wasn’t so obsessed with Geometry and hadn’t discovered the formula for the surface area of a sphere, how would we be able to determine how much material to use for a certain object?

Trust me, we have a lot to thank Archimedes for.

“Thank you Archimedes!”

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How is my campblog experience so far? What do you like best? What do I like least?

Camp Blog 1B Math

So far, my campblog experience has been “fantastic.” The best part about joining Camp Blog was meeting new friends. Teachers, students and even the host the camp were really bonding. During the camp, everybody was on the same level. I really enjoy hanging out with them. The one thing I was really amazed of was that the teachers never spaced out on us students. In fact, they were usually the life of the camp. There was never a “wall” separating us. Another thing I really like is the FOOD. Breakfast, lunch and dinner was always something to look forward to. And it doesn’t stop there, we still have snacks, both morning and afternoon xD. We were experiencing the luxuries of living.

I guess the only downside of being in Camp Blog is being away from your loved ones and not to mention gaining so much weight in just ten days…xD haha!

What wordpress feature am I most interested in?

I think the fact that you can put more than just texts and pictures in the blog is what I like most in wordpress. If you wish to put videos or music you only need to follow simple steps and it will appear directly on your blog. In other freeware applications for blogging however, only links would appear, which is really annoying because you’re going to have to open a new tab just to view what you’re looking for. Because of this, blogging became less fun for both bloggers and readers.

In wordpress, you can customize the things you like into one page.

Why did I choose the topic “Secret of Archimedes’ Tomb”?

This blog would be about the sphere. I saw an article on how those formulas were formed. It amazed me at how a normal person, Archimedes, arrived at such a discovery that we now have the benefits of.

Oftentimes, the volume and area of the sphere are discussed only until the actuality of the formula. Students memorize formulas, but they don’t know where such formulas came from and merely stick to just memorizing. An overview of how the formulas were arrived at would get them to internalize the concepts and would hopefully be curious about other discoveries as well. At the same time people would learn more about Archimedes.

I chose to entitle it “Secret of Archimedes’ Tomb” so that people’s curiosity would hopefully arouse.

This blog tackles about the concepts of the sphere. Oftentimes, the volume and area of the sphere are discussed only until the formula. Students memorize formulas, but they don’t know where such formulas came from.and merely stick to just memorizing. An overview of how the formulas were arrived at would get them to internalize the concepts and would hopefully be curious about how other formulas have been arrived at and at the same time people would learn more about Archimedes.The blog will cater to the curiosity of people about the reason behind the monument featuring a stone sphere and cylinder on the tomb of Archimedes.