“And Archimedes, as he was washing, thought of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in King Hiero's crown by seeing the water flowing over the bathing-stool. He leaped up as one possessed or inspired, crying, "I have found it! Eureka!"”

— Plutarch

Pleasure not attainable according to Epicurus, 11
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "And Archimedes, as he was washing, thought of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in King Hiero's crown by see…" by Plutarch?

Plutarch 251

ancient Greek historian and philosopher 46–127

Related quotes

“About Archimedes one remembers that he did strange things: he ran around naked shouting Heureka!, plunged crowns into water, drew geometric figures as he was about to be killed, and so on. … One ends up forgetting he was a scientist of whom we still have many writings.”

Lucio Russo (1944) Italian historian and scientist

1.1, "The Erasure of the Scientific Revolution", p. 6
The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn (2004)

“Sometimes the answers are hiding in plain sight. A eureka moment came to Archimedes when he connected the dots between the ordinary routine of taking a bath and the scientific pursuit of determining the volume of an irregularly shaped object.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

“It was a dramatic moment in the history of our civilisation when, in about the year 240 B. C., Archimedes leapt out of his bath and ran naked into the street of Syracuse shouting "Eureka" - "I have found it!" He had found the theoretical answer to a practical problem, that of finding the specific gravity of solids, known ever since as "Archimedes' Principle". We know this because Archimedes had written and published many books, on mathematics and mechanics, and some of these have survived and are preserved in libraries for us to use today. He made a major contribution to the progress of humanity, and over the centuries, that progress has been continually stimulated and accelerated by the invention of new theories, new tools and machines, which explain our world, and lighten the burden of securing the basic necessities of life.”

Douglas John Foskett (1918–2004)

Librarians and Information Systems (1995)

“There is no long interval between the sense of thirst and the trickling of the stream over the parched lip; but ever it is flowing, flowing past us, and the desire is but the opening of the lips to receive the limpid, and life-giving waters. No one ever desired the grace of God, really and truly desired it, but just in proportion as he desired it, he got it; just in proportion as he thirsted, he was satisfied.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 390.

“When he comes to me, I am ready.
I’ll wash his feet with my hair if he needs,
Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain.
Even after three times, he betrays me.
I’ll bring him down, bring him down, down,
A king with no crown, king with no crown.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Judas, written by Lady Gaga and RedOne
Song lyrics, Born This Way (2011)

“I have found it! or I have got it!, commonly quoted as Eureka!”

Archimedes (-287–-212 BC) Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer

What he exclaimed as he ran naked from his bath, realizing that by measuring the displacement of water an object produced, compared to its weight, he could measure its density (and thus determine the proportion of gold that was used in making a king's crown); as quoted by Vitruvius Pollio in De Architectura, ix.215;