The millennia since Archimedes lived seems to fade away in the telling of his story by Hirshfeld, Professor of Physics, at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Archimedes was acknowledged as brilliant by his third century B.C. peers. Today, his mathematical understanding of basics, such as buoyancy, levers, and screws, is taken for granted, but still applied. Professor Hirshfeld shows the relationship between sensational feats credited to Archimedes in the ancient world, and modern marvels, such as mechanical cardiac assist systems or wastewater treatment plants.
Professor Hirshfeld is also the author of The Electric Life of Michael Faraday and Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos.
Sponsored by the Friends of the Needham Public Library.
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