The Story Behind the ScienceHieron, the king of Syracuse and Archimedes' friend, wanted to know whether his crown was made of solid gold. The king suspected that the gold had been mixed with silver, which is worth less than gold. So he asked Archimedes to try to resolve the question. The solution would have been easy if the king had allowed the crown to be melted down. Since that was no possible, Archimedes had to find another solution to determine the metal content of the crown. Archimedes discovered the answer while at a public bath. He noticed that when he got into the water, it overflowed the tub. By measuring the overflow, he found that the volume-the amount of space a thing occupies-of the spilled water was equal to the volume of his body under water. He realized he could determine the gold content of the crown by measuring the water it would displace against the amount of water displaced by a lump of gold weighing the same as the crown. The crown and lump of gold would each displace the same amount of water if the crown were solid gold. If the crown contained silver, it would displace more water, since the volume of a weight of silver is greater than the volume of the same weight of gold. With this discovery, Archimedes leaped from his bath and in his excitement raced naked down the street toward his home, shouting "EUREKA! I have found it!"Archimedes was the first to develop the physical law that is now known as Archimedes' law. The law explains buoyancy, or why objects seem to lose weight in water or other liquids. This principle has been applied ever since to test precious metals.
The most widely known anecdote about Archimedes tells of how he invented a method for determining the volume of an object with an irregular shape. According to Vitruvious, a new crown in the shape of a laurel wreath had been made for King Hiero II, and Archimedes was asked to determine whether it was of solid gold, or whether silver had been added by a dishonest goldsmith. Archimedes had to solve the problem without damaging the crown, so he could not melt it down into a regularly shaped body in order to calculate its density. While taking a bath, he noticed that the level of the water in the tub rose as he got in, and realized that this effect could be used to determine the volume of the crown. For practical purposes water is incompressible, so the submerged crown would displace an amount of water equal to its own volume. By dividing the weight of the crown by the volume of water displaced, the density of the crown could be obtained. This density would be lower than that of gold if cheaper and less dense metals had been added. Archimedes then took to the streets naked, so excited by his discovery that he had forgotten to dress, crying "Eureka!" (Greek: "εὕρηκα!," meaning "I have found it!")The story of the golden crown does not appear in the known works of Archimedes. Moreover, the practicality of the method it describes has been called into question, due to the extreme accuracy with which one would have to measure the water displacement. Archimedes may have instead sought a solution that applied the principle known in hydrostatics as Archimedes' Principle, which he describes in his treatiseOn Floating Bodies. This principle states that a body immersed in a fluid experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces. Using this principle, it would have been possible to compare the density of the golden crown to that of solid gold by balancing the crown on a scale with a gold reference sample, then immersing the apparatus in water. If the crown was less dense than gold, it would displace more water due to its larger volume, and thus experience a greater buoyant force than the reference sample. This difference in buoyancy would cause the scale to tip accordingly. Galileo considered it "probable that this method is the same that Archimedes followed, since, besides being very accurate, it is based on demonstrations found by Archimedes himself.
by using the water displacement method of Archimedes. For example,a stone's volume(an irregularly-shaped figure) can be measured by dropping it in a graduated cylinder with water(for example 20g water)...then the water will be displaced after you immersed the stone into it(it became 35g).the total displaced water(15g) will be the stone's volume.. this is the same with what happened to Archimedes when he was asked by a king to determine whether his crown was made of pure gold. for more info,just read some books..lol!
The crown is Europe's stamp for silver. It simply means that the piece was made in Europe. European jewelry may also have a lion stamp. Is it possible that this piece is actually silver and not gold? If so, the 36 means that the piece contains 36% silver.
Take it to see Money Mart, they can test it or find a gold test kit
Yes Archimedes crown was pure gold. how they know this is that they weighed the dentisity of the crown.
Archimedes was told by the king to find out if his crown was made of pure gold, calculating the density of the crown, Archimedes found it to be a mix of gold and silver.
Archimedes came across concept of density - that is MASS divided by VOLUME. For each substance this ratio is different but a CONSTANT for that substance. Thus the mass you are dealing with is irrelevant if the crown had the same ratio as the piece of pure gold then the crown was pure god, if it did not then the crown was not gold.
hi
Archimedes came across concept of density - that is MASS divided by VOLUME. For each substance this ratio is different but a CONSTANT for that substance. Thus the mass you are dealing with is irrelevant if the crown had the same ratio as the piece of pure gold then the crown was pure god, if it did not then the crown was not gold.
Archimedes wanted to know the density of gold to determine if the crown was partially silver rather than all gold.
Hiero II, the King of Syracuse, wanted Archimedes to determine if gold had been withheld from a crown by the goldsmith commissioned to make it. Without damaging the crown, Archimedes used water displacement to prove that the gold was not all there.
Archimedes would have used the principle of displacement to compare the volume of the crown to the volume of the pure gold piece. If the volumes were equal, then the crown is pure gold. If the crown had a higher volume, it would mean that it was mixed with another material, making it less dense than pure gold.
You may be referring to the story of how Archimedes was able to determine if a crown had been made of pure gold (or less-than-pure gold) by measuring how much water the crown and an equal weight of pure gold displaced.
Archimedes thought that if the gold crown and the gold bar had the same mass and volume, the crown was pure gold and if they didn't, the crown was a fake and the jeweller was a fraud. (I just had to do this for homework. I'm right!)
Archimedes used water displacement to determine the volume of the crown and compared it to the volume of pure gold of the same weight. If the crown's volume was greater, meaning it had been alloyed with a less dense metal, then the king's crown was not made of solid gold.
That ur stupid and get off of wiki answers and hit the books. ....LOL:{)