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Archimedes did a tremendous amount of ground-breaking work on [[lever]]s and [[pulley]]s, enabling the Greeks to move heavier things than ever before. He once bragged “give me a place to stand on, and I will move the earth”. He also invented the [[Archimedes screw]], a device (consisting of a large screw inside a pipe) still used in irrigation today. Despite all this, he considered his greatest accomplishment to be his two-volume work, ''On the [[Sphere]] and [[Cylinder]]''. In this work, he used the method of exhaustion to estimate the area of a circle and the volume of a sphere by successive approximations.  This method is a precursor to the development of [[calculus]], 2000 years later.  He had a diagram of a sphere and cylinder engraved from this work on his tombstone when he died.  In 2005, a palimpsest was examined using X-ray technology to uncover some heretofore undiscovered works, including the ''Stomachion'', the most significant known use of combinatorics in the ancient world.  

Archimedes did a tremendous amount of ground-breaking work on [[lever]]s and [[pulley]]s, enabling the Greeks to move heavier things than ever before. He once bragged “give me a place to stand on, and I will move the earth”. He also invented the [[Archimedes screw]], a device (consisting of a large screw inside a pipe) still used in irrigation today. Despite all this, he considered his greatest accomplishment to be his two-volume work, ''On the [[Sphere]] and [[Cylinder]]''. In this work, he used the method of exhaustion to estimate the area of a circle and the volume of a sphere by successive approximations.  This method is a precursor to the development of [[calculus]], 2000 years later.  He had a diagram of a sphere and cylinder engraved from this work on his tombstone when he died.  In 2005, a palimpsest was examined using X-ray technology to uncover some heretofore undiscovered works, including the ''Stomachion'', the most significant known use of combinatorics in the ancient world.  

In 212 B.C., the Roman army under command of General [[Marcellus]] succeeded in invading Syracuse.  Archimedes reportedly was absorbed in concentration, drawing figures in the dirt with a stick when a Roman soldier demanded he surrender.  Archimedes refused, saying his calculations were not yet complete and was slain on the spot.

An apocryphal story about the end of his life recounts that in 212 B.C., the Roman army under command of General [[Marcellus]] succeeded in invading Syracuse, Archimedes' home.  Archimedes reportedly was absorbed in concentration, drawing figures in the dirt with a stick when a Roman soldier demanded he surrender.  Archimedes refused, saying his calculations were not yet complete and was slain on the spot.

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