Archimedes

Fulcrum of Science

9781789149227
REAKTION BOOKS
Nicholas Nicastro
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A bold reimagining of the Greek mathematician’s singular life as a truly modern scientist.

Galileo, Leonardo, Newton, and Tesla revered him: Archimedes of Syracuse – an engineer who single-handedly defied the world’s most powerful army and a mathematician who knew more in 212 BCE than all of Europe would know for the next seventeen centuries. In this bold reimagining, modern polymath Nicholas Nicastro shines a new light on Archimedes’ life and work. Far from the aloof, physically inept figure of historical myth, Archimedes is revealed to be an ambitious, combative, and fiercely competitive man. A genius who challenged an empire, Archimedes emerges in this book as the world’s first fully modern scientist – millennia before his intellectual descendants transformed our world.

9781789149227
Contributor Bio

Nicholas Nicastro is a novelist and science writer with articles in the New York Times, New York Observer, and others. His books include Circumference: Eratosthenes and the Ancient Quest to Measure the Globe.

9781789149227
9781789149227