Preface.- Archimedes the Pragmatic Engineer.- Archimedes the Military Engineer.- Archimedes the Geometer.- Archimedes the Mathematician.- Archimedes and Ship Design.- Archimedes Screw in the 21st Century.- Archimedes, Astronomy, and the Planetarium.- Archimedes in the 21st Century Imagination.
Chris Rorres is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He has studied and extended the works of Archimedes for more than 40 years, and is considered one of the world's leading experts on the subject.
This book is a collection of papers presented at the “Archimedes in the 21st Century” world conference, held at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in 2013. This conference focused on the enduring and continuing influence of Archimedes in our modern world, celebrating his centuries of influence on mathematics, science, and engineering.
Archimedes planted the seeds for a myriad of seminal ideas that would grow over the ages. Each chapter surveys the growth of one or more of these seeds, and the fruit that they continue to bear to this day. The conference speakers contributing to this book are actively involved in STEM fields whose origins trace back to Archimedes, many of whom have conducted and published research that extends Archimedes’ work into the 21st century. The speakers are not historians, so while historical context is provided, this book is uniquely focused on the works themselves as opposed to their history.
The breadth and depth of Archimedes’ influence will inspire, delight, and even surprise readers from a variety of fields and interests including historians, mathematicians, scientists, and engineers. Only a modest background in math is required to read this book, making it accessible to curious readers of all ages.