1-156-884 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

Archimedes in his bath, 1547. Sixteenth-century hand-coloured woodcut of the Greek mathematician and inventor (c287-212 BC) who discovered formulae for calculating areas and volumes of planes and solid figures. He also made significant contributions to hydrostatics, the behaviour and power of static fluids. Archimedes is popularly supposed to have shouted Eureka on discovering that the water rose as he got into the bath: the principle of upthrust on a floating body.