Talk:Eureka (word)

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It would be nice to identify and read some sources on the "Eureka!" moment of Archimedes. I seem to remember learning that there's more to the story than the popular legend. -- Beland 22:46, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Buoyancy? I thought Archimedes' realization was that the volume of water displaced would be equal to the volume of the crown, the weight of the crown was easily measurable through other known methods, and with the two he could calculate density and thereby know if it was pure gold. --Mike Schiraldi 12:07, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


What's the earliest source telling the story that Archimedes discovered Archimedes' principle in a bath house and shouted "Eureka"? Was it Vitruvius? Did this source already talk about the King's order (was there even a King in Archimedes' time?) to find a way to prove or disprove the King's suspicion that the crown he received did not contain all the gold he gave to the smith?

Perhalps we should repeat this story (as alledged, not as fact) a bit more in detail, both here and in the Archimedes article. -- Adhemar

There's also a passage in Plutarch. The "king" in question was the tyrannos Hiero II. I feel it's deceptive to talk about an "order". That's not how Hiero worked and certainly not how Archimedes worked. Perhaps we might best see Archimedes as a man suffering from a severe Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in that he forced himself to solve any mathematical problem he was confronted with. That Roman soldier might have been waiting for quite a while before he lost his patience...

-MWAK 18:59, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The "bathtub" in the article is also an anachronism, if indeed the original tale in De architectura specifies the public baths of Syracuse. --Ziusudra 20:33, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation[edit]

If anyone knows how to pronounce the word, could they add an IPA description? - Thanks.

Found /'evrika/ and /'eure:ka/ at [1]. –Mysid(t) 12:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]


In the classical Greek pronunciation provided my Mr. Foundalis (above), the rough breathing is ignored. The best source on these questions of pronunciation is probably still Edgar H. Sturtevant's Pronunciation of Greek and Latin, 1940, ISBN 0890050872. --Ziusudra 20:33, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
it was my understanding that ignoring the rough breathing was a dialect thing. That pronouncing it with an 'h' is good classical attic greek, but some other dialects did not use it. Novium 12:05, 11 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

2007-02-1 Automated pywikipediabot message[edit]

--CopyToWiktionaryBot 11:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

weight vs. mass[edit]

Shouldn't the word weight in the the line: "by dividing the object's weight by its volume, one could calculate its density..." be changed to mass? Mass refers to the amount of matter in an object while weight includes the influence of gravity. --Emphyrio 15:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As far as Archimedes was concerned the two concepts were one. —David Eppstein 15:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. --Emphyrio 22:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is more than one use of this word. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.246.120.231 (talk) 03:49, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the Article, is this statement correct (?): "For the problem posed to Archimedes, though, there is a simple method which requires no precision equipment: balance the crown against pure gold in air, and then submerge the scale with crown and gold in water to see if they still balance." -- ps6 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.60.25.82 (talk) 16:08, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure it is correct, but it should be sourced. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gauss eureka image[edit]

Is there any hope of obtaining an appropriately-licensed image of the page of Gauss' notebooks with his use of "eureka" on it? The source we have doesn't give the actual image (and anyway if it did its reproduction would probably fall under copyright). —David Eppstein (talk) 00:40, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There's an image Here but again (because the publication date of the reproduction is 2005) I'm unsure of the copyright issues. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:28, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not a lawyer, but this article on Derivative work would seem to indicate that merely photographing Gauss' notebook does not create a new derivative work, with it's own originality; therefore the rights go back to Gauss, who can't claim any infringement because he's been dead for 150 years. However, I'd still seek a second opinion from someone who regularly works in this area on WP. Wikiwayman (talk) 14:12, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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