Short Story- Archimedes

Eureka Eureka

Long long time ago, at about 2.200 years ago, there was King Hieron II of Syracuse in Sicily. The King wanted to wear a Golden Crown. He gave some gold to a goldsmith to make a suitable crown. After few days, the goldsmith brought the finished crown to the King.

“O...My Lord...here is the magnificent crown I’ve made.”  The king was glad and accept the crown. But when the King looked at the color of the crown, he had a suspicion. “The goldsmith could have stolen some gold from the gold I gave to him,” he thought.  

“Goldsmith, did you use all the gold I gave  you?”

“ O, my Lord...for the God shake of course I used all the gold you gave me. If you don’t believe, please weigh the crown.” Then the crown was weighed. The weight of the crown was equal to the gold given to the goldsmith by the King...However, the King still didn’t believe in him.

“Well, goldsmith...although it has the same weight with the gold but the color is really different from pure gold. What is your explanation? “

“Your Majesty, if you don’t believe in me. I couldn’t explain anything. I’ve proven that the crown has same weight with the gold. I could say no more. ”

“Okay then, you may leave now. But, anytime I find the truth ....you know .....you will be punished.”

 The king really wanted to find out the truth. The king, however had no way of proving his suspicion, so he asked Archimedes, a Greek scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor and astronomer- to find a definite answer.  The King said, “Archimedes, I am sure that the goldsmith had stolen some of the gold. I want you to prove it. Find out how much gold had been stolen?” if you couldn’t prove it. You will be sent to the prison.”

“  Alright, your Majesty. I’ll do my best to find it.”

How to find out the truth? Day by day and night after night Archimedes thought about the problem.

One day when he was about to have his bath,  he was busy thinking. So that He did not notice the bathtub. The water in the bathtub was already full to the brim. Then he slid into the bathtub. Immediately a large quantity of water flowed over the brim of the bath tub. He noticed this suddenly and his brain wave worked suddenly. He jumped out of the bathtub, shouting, “Eureka! Eureka! I have found it.”  He continued running out of the bathromm, and out of the house straight to the street, still shouting  excitedly “Eureka! Eureka!!

He didn’t realize that he was wet and naked. So the whole city were laughing at him. “Is he mad?” “Yes,  Archimedes is mad.” Maybe he is crazy thinking about the king’s order.”  “Owh, poor Archimedes!”

But the truth wasn’t like that. Archimedes wasn’t mad at all. He was too excited to remember that he was naked.  Well, Eureka in Greek means “I have found it.”  Seeing what had happened in the bathroom reminding him that objects, put in water, will displace water. The displaced water will be equal to their volume.  And the fact is, Different metals of the same weight have different volumes.
For example, an iron cube weighing a kilogram will disperse some water. But an aluminums cube of the same weight will displace more water than the iron cube.

Archimedes knew all these theories. Then using this as the basic knowledge, Archimedes worked out a plan to find out the purity of the crown.

Archimedes took two bowls. He filled them with water to the brim. Then he placed each bowl separately in the middle of the large vessels. He placed the crown in one bowl. Water overflowed. It collected at the bottom of the outer vessel. Then he took a cube of pure gold. This cube of gold was equal in weight to the crown. He kept this gold cube in the middle of the second bowl. Here also water overflowed. Water got collected at the bottom of the outer bowl.

Archimedes then measured the quantity of water in the two vessels. He found out the difference in the water overflow. The crown had sent out more water. The cube of gold had sent out less water. But both the crown and the gold cube were of the same weight. So, they should have sent out the same quantity of water. Therefore, the crown had some other metals mixed in it. These metals took up more space in the water than pure gold.

Archimedes reported this finding to the King.

“Your Majesty...I’m here before you to report the finding of my experiment. I can say that this crown wasn’t made of pure gold.”

  Then Archimedes explained the theory and his experiment to the king.

“Good job Archimedes!! I’m so happy that you can solve this problem and I will give whatever you want. Think about it!

“Now, everything must be done fairly.” The king ordered,”Send the goldsmith here!!”

The King demanded the truth from the goldsmith. “ I’ve heard from Archimedes that you replace some of the gold with another metal. Is that right, goldsmith??”

The goldsmith is trembling...but he knew that  he had no chance to escape. “ I beg you to forgive me... my Lord. But please listen to my explanation for doing so.... That’s right I had added  some cooper to the crown. But, I think that pure gold isn’t hard enough so by adding some cooper the crown will be harder and couldn’t bend easily. Actually, I will give back the rest of the gold. But.... but.... well, my Lord... I took the gold for a very important reason”

“Well, whatever is your reason.” The king said. “You are guilty for stealing my gold...but I would like to hear your important reason for taking the gold.”

“ Alright your Majesty...,” He stopped and took a deep breath, “well, my wife is pregnant. As we know that pregnant woman often ask strange thing. Last week, when she knew about this crown she forced me to allow her to try the crown. I told her that she couldn’t do that or God will punish her. She was upset and  stole the rest of the gold and hide it. She said that it was the baby who asked her to take the gold.”

So the king asked  his guard to send the goldsmith wife.

“ I’m really very sorry, your majesty...I’m the one who is guilty for stealing the gold. So, please release my husband. He isn’t guilty. It’s my own fault,” the goldsmith wife said.

“No...you are pregnant dear...I won’t let  you do that. I will replace you to get the punishment. Your Majesty, she has my baby. Don’t punish them my lord, please...” the goldsmith kissed the king’s feet. He was crying.

“ Wow, so sweet....huahuahua....” Archimedes was crying.“Please forgive me Your Majesty...it’s touching my heart that he will sacrifice himself for his beloved wife. 

“But, still both of them had made a big mistake.” Said the king.

“However, he has done his job very well and he loved his wife purely.  Besides, we also couldn’t kill the innocent baby.  So please let them alife, my lord. I beg you.....This is the only thing I ask for the reward.”

“Well, Archimedes. Because I’ve promised you to give whatever you want...then I’ll forgive them as you ask.”

Finally  the king was very kind to forgive the goldsmith and his wife.

                        The end

 

Nowadays, the density which was found by Archimedes can be useful in measuring the contain of the metal in an alloy, for example when we buy or sell the gold we can measure how much the weight of the gold or other metal in the alloy.

 Moral message: From this story we can learn that in this world we can solve every problem, even something that seems impossible. Second,  that learning can be done anytime anywhere... even in the bathroom.  Third, that honesty is a must, no exception!!

This story was rewritten for Story Telling Contest.