Archimedes was a great mathematician and engineer who was born 287 years BC in Syracuse, Sicily. He is credited with coming up with the idea and the use of modern day maths equations and the way things like levers pumps and pulleys work. Archimedes had wrote in a letter to King Hieron that he could move any weight with pulley, he boasted that given enough pulleys he could move the whole world! The king challenged him to move a big ship that would take lots of men and a great amount of work to move the sea. On the planned day, the ship was loaded with lots of passengers and lots of cargo, and the king watched to see if Archimedes could do what he said he could do. Archimedes knew he could improve his mechanical advantage for lifting or moving objects using pulleys.
A pulley moves a force along a rope without changing how big it is. When engineers work with pulleys they often make sure that the rope of the pulley moves smooth and evenly, without catching. These systems are known simply as "pulley systems" because they use the same rope through the whole system, if the pulleys were attached with more than one rope the system would be a "complex system".
By Katie
2 comments:
Katie what interesting information. I do love the illustration you have drawn! Great work!
I also meant to ask you...... - what do you think of Archimedes? You have given lots of information about him that I have really enjoyed reading. Did he move the ship?
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