Archimedes, The Great Mathematician

Archimedes  (pronounce: Ar-ka-mi-dees;  آر - کا - می - ڈیز ) 

287 BC to 212 BC

Greek Mathematician and Engineer who claimed that if he provided place to stand, he can move the earth.

Archimedes had a dramatic death. 

In 212 BC, when Romans entered his city as conquerors, he was so busy in drawing his geometrical diagrams on sand that he did not notice the defeat of his army. 

When a Roman soldier ordered him to follow, Archimedes replied: "Fellow, stand away from my diagram." Infuriated, the soldier unsheathed his sword and murdered a greatest mathematician of all times.

Roman general Marcellus attacked the city state of Syracuse, Sicily (Italy) in 214 BC and conquered it after a long siege of 2 years in 212 BC.

Marcellus

Archimedes was like a Royal mathematician of his city state. In order to defeat the attacking Romans, he invented different kinds of missile type of weapons on the basis of his mathematical and geometrical principles. 

It was because of his these inventions that Romans, who had planned to take over the city in days, had to fight for 2 long years.

Two great qualities of Archimedes were that he was always prepared to question the popular beliefs of his time and he considered gaining of knowledge for its own sake as the greatest good.

Archimedes, through his thought experiments, discovered that volume of a ball placed in a cylinder is always 2/3 of the volume of the cylinder.

He was so pleased with his this discovery that he willed that this formula be inscribed on his tombstone, which was accordingly done.

Roman Senator Cicero

More than a century later, Cicero found his tombstone inscribed with this formula.