Eureka [juə'riːkə]
From the Greek heureka "I have found it". It was, it is well known, the exclamation of Archimedes* [ˌɑːkɪˈmiːdiːz], the Syracusan* philosopher.
King Hiero had delivered to Archimedes his royal crown for the purity of the gold to be tested. The King, who had delivered a certain weight of gold to a smith to be made into the crown, suspected that the gold had been mixed with an alloy, Archimedes, at his wit's end to know how to test, was pondering over the problem when he went to his bath. As he stepped in the brimming tub some of the water slopped over the side.The story can be continued now by Vitruvius* [vɪˈtruːviəs], who says that it at once occured to Archimedes that a body must remove its own bulk of water. He further argued that as silver is lighter than gold, a pound-weight of silver would be more bulky than a pound-weight of gold and would, consequently, displace more water.
"When the idea flashed into his mind," says Vitruvius, "the philosopher jumped out of the bath, and without waiting to dress homself ran through the streets naked, crying 'Heureka', to try the experiment at home."
The result was that Archimedes found that the crown was actually deficient in weight of gold.
Hence the corrupted word "Eureka" is now applied as an exclamation when anything hidden is at last found.
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- Archimedes (287-212 B. C.) - Greek mathematician, physisist, and inventor.
- Syracusan - from Syracuse, a city of Sicily.
- Vitruvius - Roman architect and engineer of the first century B. C., author of a celebrated treatise on architecture.