"archimedes" poems
.
What floats your boat babe,
Archimedes' Principle of Water Displacement?
© Pagan Paul (20/07/18)
Jul 21, 2018
Jul 21, 2018 at 7:36 AM UTC
Dear Poet Friends, I hope you like this slice of Early History presented
below in simple verse. Please do read the short notes at the end, before giving your comments. Thanks, - Raj
ARCHIMEDES : THE PIONEERING
STREAKER OF HISTORY!
There lived in the Third Century BC, in the Sicilian
town of Syracuse, then a Greek colony,
A Greek mathematician named Archimedes.
He was tasked by King Hiero of his town,
To find the purity of gold in his crown;
Suspicious of the goldsmith having mixed
some material of inferior kind,
Which the King wanted Archimedes to find!
So, Archimedes lost in thought one day,
Entered the public bath on his way!
And as his body began to get submerged,
He happened to notice perchance,
Water spilling over from the tub!
The answer suddenly flashed across his
mind,
And he jumped up leaving everything
behind,
Wearing only his birthday suit,
Running through the street of Syracuse,
Exclaiming - “Eureka! Eureka!”
(I have found it! I have found it!)
Perhaps to become the first known streaker
of History!
While establishing the Principles of Buoyancy!
@ (see notes)
Archimedes, son of the astronomer Pheidias,
studied at the great Alexandrian city,
Remembered even to this day for his many
pioneering works, -
In Hydrostatics, Mechanics, and Geometry.
With his ingenious mechanical discoveries,
He held the great Roman galleys of Marcellus
at bay,
For more than three years, as Plutarch the
Roman Historian says! + (see notes)
Later one day, while lost in deep thought,
When some intricate problem of geometry
he was trying to resolve,
Refused to hear Marcellus' bidding,
To be slain by the Roman soldiers who had
come to fetch him!
O those Romans, with lesser brains and more
brawn!
And some hundred and thirty years after
his death in 75 BC,
Cicero, then the Roman Governor of Sicily,
Found the tomb of great Archimedes, near the
Agrigentine Gate, over grown with bushes and
thorns;
Where he lay buried in the scented dust of History!
- Raj Nandy, New Delhi.
NOTES:
@ Principle of Buoyancy = any floating object displaces its own
weight of fluid. So weight displaced by a crown of pure gold and
the one already made could be compared to find the truth!
+ Archimedes designed large stone throwers, & crossbows, and
also grappling hooks using large cranes to grab Roman ships and
capsize them!
Jun 25, 2016
Jun 25, 2016 at 9:04 AM UTC
Who on Earth were these people
From the past, who made sense
Of a world without iPods, iPads or plumbing?
What’s up with those towering minds of yesteryear?
From where did they come and how come?
Goethe standing so tall
Voltaire you tower!
And bend over Beethoven,
I can’t reach your low five.
What grant of Gods favor gave them sight?
Awesome mighty minds of the past.
Descartes, I think so you are,
So smart that I think I am not.
Galileo you saw heaven before I had eyes.
Einstein, Da Vinci, Archimedes
You and your kind will all live forever,
Men will stand upon your shoulders
And then die.
Dec 11, 2012
Dec 11, 2012 at 10:00 PM UTC
As I let my mind wander into time, and release these binds that have me confined, I began to feel a great energy, like the sun had been compressed and put into me, and as time tic tocs and unwinds into its trail of infinity. I realize a trinity mind body soul, they burn as a whole, for the mightiest of goals. and as time unwinds it'll leave you behind. unless you get your spot in, a line of legacys never to be forgotten
Confucius, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr, George Washington, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Nelson Mendala, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Steve Jobs, Stephen Hawkins, Leonardo Da Vinci, Wolfgang Amedeus Mozart, nikola tesla, Wael Ghonim, Jimi Hendrix, Joseph Stiglitz, Reed Hastings, François Rabelais, Archimedes, Sigmund Frued, Charles Darwin, Aryabhata, Bob Marley, Garrett Morgan, George Washington Carver, Aristotle, John Locke, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Plato, Galileo Galilei...and many many more...
Stand for something. Think outside the box. Evolve and express yourself. Make a difference #STEM #LegacyToIfinity
Nov 28, 2014
Nov 28, 2014 at 5:31 PM UTC
My pet cat licks my face repeatedly; it feels a bit strange
to jut my jaw forward for a feline to lick and make my face wet.
but as I sit my eyes shut, it feels unreasonably nice, then, it dawns:
she is clicking her LIKES on my real Facebook page
the way she knows best.
Eureka! this is my tender Archimedes moment !
the naked truth, reveals itself before me like Venus
why the crazy craving, without rhyme or reason
for LIKES in Facebook and cyberspace;
now, I understand so well.
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 1:00 PM UTC
XVIII
Cyriack, whose Grandsire on the Royal Bench
Of Brittish Themis, with no mean applause
Pronounc’t and in his volumes taught our Lawes,
Which others at their Barr so often wrench:
To day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench
In mirth, that after no repenting drawes;
Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause,
And what the Swede intend, and what the French.
To measure life, learn thou betimes, and know
Toward solid good what leads the nearest way;
For other things mild Heav’n a time ordains,
And disapproves that care, though wise in show,
That with superfluous burden loads the day,
And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.
2.8k
*at night you can spot him strolling the pavement,
the modern archimedes, with a bottle of bavaria beer,
using his cigarette lighter to detail the bottle cap
with one smooth use of leverage, as taught
by paul the ex-convict, the hopeful dub-step d.j.*
the 19th century had its pan-slavism,
but given there’s a union between the germanic people
and slavic people while mama siberia is
left behind freezing,
outside with the big bad wolves and bears -
having exported serious existential literature
of doom and grooming gloom to scandinavia,
the balkan slavs still uncertain, rejected in favour
of the bulgars and the romanians,
i can mention the northern slavic trans-slavism,
not quiet trans-gender, such a linguistic surgery of the soul
requires little details like:
my point was proved about the up-turned nose in england
concerning public intellectuals... they do great cornish pastry
and music anyway, let the french do the thinking
and find joy in it -
plus reading philosophy books
in english is like pulling your teeth out, standing in a bucket of
ice cold water with someone setting fire to your hair.
Nov 6, 2015
Nov 6, 2015 at 9:00 AM UTC
Tell me how,
One person can divide into
Three perfectly psychotic sentiments
While still appearing to be whole
Tell me how
Multiplying your kindness only
Creates a rift between myself and patience
And ends with nights of contemplation followed by tumultuous
Back-and-forths with imaginary numbers
For I am no mathematician
I cannot find a solution to every concrete problem
I do not bother with equations or substitutes
I only skim the symbol, rewrite questions and leave the answers hanging in the air
Tell me why,
Subtracting victims from my life
Only added a murderous sentiment
To every repeating decimal that couldn’t find its’ place
Tell me why,
The quadratic formula is emblazoned in my memory
But everyone keeps throwing opposites at me
So forgetting whether to add or to subtract becomes hazy
And the square root gets suspended until next class, so the
Four drops off the plane, two goes insane, and
Letters lose their fictitious meanings
For I am no mathematician
Archimedes is finding the constant of my triangular coffin
While Newton is rolling in his gravity
Carl Gauss is busy laughing his *** off with fundamentals in his eyes and
Descartes keeps whispering incoherent Latin, migraines sprinting towards me
As if in a race
So don’t ask me
Whether or not you should divide by zero
Or whether it requires sine, cosine, or a tangent
My logic will not tell you anything you want to hear
I am through trying to piece together this imaginary puzzle
And I’ve had enough of playing this never-ending game
Because I’ve been through two continents, and 4 different states
And I still don’t know the meaning of my name.
For I am no mathematician
The only pie charts I am fond of,
have to do with sugar and preheating an oven to 450 degrees
And with every cubic centimeter
I start thinking of cubes of cheddar cheese
For I am no mathematician
I can’t graph a simple line
I don’t understand the dimensions of the polygon shown above
And I’m tired of wasting precious time
Oct 2, 2015
Oct 2, 2015 at 6:15 PM UTC
Like when they found the chariot
wheels at the bottom of the
Red Sea so was I surprised
at the faint reaching of the
fig tree, clinging to life amidst
so much dust, as it reached
ever upward in an infinite dance,
unaware of its eventual wanweird fate.
But I tracked on, crunching through
the ancient dirt, scrolls strapped
upon my back, coarse leather digging
through my camel's hair robes, sandy
grit forced in the gaps of
my toes. I cracked the locusts
and devoured them, dampening their bitterness
with the sweet warming explosion of
wild honey. So with bound Pleiades
above me, I gave witness to
Jerusalem, saying "After me will come
one more powerful than I, the
thongs of whose sandals I am
not worthy to stoop down and
untie." And I took them into
the Jordan and made them new
men. As the chill waters numbed
their muscles, their hairs pricked up
like gooseflesh, the night echoing with
splashing water and murmured voices. But
slowly the people trickled away, back
to the twang of lutes, their
ladles of soups, and I was
left alone, sitting, contemplating, always waiting.
So I sent forth the ravens,
carrying my message, to meet at
the Brookhollow no matter the obstruction,
to come by wagon or camel,
no matter of rain or flood.
But they were stubborn and prideful,
and would be moved from their
couches probably by no less than
one of Archimedes' great battleship levers,
and even then with massive groaning
like the coarse wooden hulls of
those monolithic ships. Because the sweet
taste of pastries is lodged upon
their tongues, keeping them occupied with
this world instead of the next.
So here I'll stay, always waiting.
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 1:02 AM UTC
XXI
Cyriac, whose grandsire on the royal bench
Of British Themis, with no mean applause
Pronounced and in his volumes taught our laws,
Which others at their bar so often wrench;
Today deep thoughts resolve with me to drench
In mirth, that after no repenting draws;
Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause,
And what the Swede intends, and what the French.
To measure life learn thou betimes, and know
Toward solid good what leads the nearest way;
For other things mild Heav’n a time ordains,
And disapproves that care, though wise in show,
That with superfluous burden loads the day,
And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.
1.6k
written with Mohamed Nasir
please check him out he is such a talented peot
As I was young running underneath the shower
Droplets speckling my face Ike water freckles
I ran across the watery lane in the fountain of
My youth
I ran naked wet under the sprinkler's arches
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! I shouted
Joyfully as Archimedes found truth and naked
He ran down the street of Athens
Eurica! Eurica! Eurica! He shouted
Then I heard someone call my name
And shake me up
"Get up," my mother said
"You wet your bed again," she said
I was dreaming in my wet dreams again
Nov 20, 2017
Nov 20, 2017 at 10:50 PM UTC
As proved by my good friend Archimedes,
in his _Measurement of a Circle_,
the area enclosed by a circle is equal
to that of a triangle whose base has the length
of the circle's circumference &
whose height equals the circle's radius,
which comes to π multiplied by the radius squared:
Area = pi r^2.
Equivalently, denoting diameter by _d_
Area =pi d^2/4 approx 0.7854d^2,
that is, approximately
79% of the circumscribing
square whose side is of length _d_
The circle is the plane curve enclosing
the maximum area for a given arc length.
This relates the circle to a problem
in the calculus of variations,
namely the isoperimetric inequality [of course]
Sep 1, 2018
Sep 1, 2018 at 6:54 PM UTC
Breaker Bar
Every now and then I get the itch to lift
The simple slender breaker bar in my hands
Snap a socket on the square pivot fitting
And go hunting for a big fat frozen bolt
One that hasn’t budged in ages, rust bound
Threads that yearn to give held fast by a split
Spiral washer, tense marriage of wedge
To pent up tension for no other reason
Than to feel the sheer unbridled joy
That comes from applying Archimedes
Law of the Lever, poised to deliver
A stunning verdict proclaimed with a sharp
Dry crack that travels through my hands
My arms to light up some forgotten
Constellation in a dark and dusty
corner of my brain, closing a circuit
That began with the simple slender
Breaker bar, bequeathed but rarely wielded
A conjure stick to summon you back to
Throw your weight around, tip the scales in my
Favor, balanced absurdly here on the business end.
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 7:12 AM UTC
Who I Ever Heard Of
when I was seven ;
the same year I learned Archimedes said Eureka
for a reason,
and I was vaccinated against Polio.
My hearing of Whose has been different, sense.
Mar 16, 2018
Mar 16, 2018 at 11:59 PM UTC
You sink in despair
but will soon float because of
the fear you displace.
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 10:48 AM UTC
this one is of a lesser activity, it doesn't
really involve the nine jokes of egypt
and the final "plague" / ultimate condemnation
of what ideal was reigning egypt at the time:
architectural necrophilia - the pyramids
are just that, not the modern sense of
the word, the old sense of it, in terms of architecture;
but unlike the pillar of fire ahead,
and the pillar of smoke that attracts
atheists... this aversion to the fire is also
a grecian sentiment to the near simplicity
of the hebrews when pre-socratics arose,
followed by the students of socrates and
archimedes - it's very much a testimony of zeus
and hades - lightning ahead, and thunder
behind... indeed if hades is not a person
but a realm (typical human fear exampled)
hades bellows, howls and snarls like a hungry wolf:
the lightning is representative of the sharpness
of cognition - the origin of science and
the laconic darwinism of aristotle - hidden for
so long and almost entirely discarded because
it was more interesting for man to represent man:
in all affairs orientating man to man,
rather than man to conservation projects -
not why the rhino evolved to have a horn,
but why would man evolve to cut it off...
given man sharpened flint and put it on
the end of a spear and made ivory not a weapon
the rhino deems fit... but an ornament of
a tea table leg in beijing;
the thunder? we all know who coined the
endowment if one follows him - st. peter,
paul, matthew john etc. were known as sons
of thunder... strange that they were not
known as sons of lightning... i guess dim witted
is adequate enough to provide comparison -
shouting maniacs who didn't really bother to think.
Dec 16, 2015
Dec 16, 2015 at 6:26 AM UTC
Part 8.
Yeh, yeh, yeh, sneer, to cool, hot to never, back down,
if and or but you did, or
you could have, had you had
half a chance.
Let's dance, two-step slow,
and watch lies we unbelieved slip as buckyballs,
on ice.
Twice told tales, told in time, ad another just
in time.
Oh, gnoshit, this just in, as ice, on ice, just, too
cool, you know. Ecklbarger, mulleted east-coaster,
show me your ticket on this Virgen line,
or walk
away.
Boom, dose two, dose y duo, rock on.
- the story rests, at https://kenpepiton.com millions of words,
use in any other order, however you wish,
twist right to tighten, left to loose, just to hold the pressure,
Archimedes ******* too tight, loose the letter t, t, see tiny t
tict..ticket. Punch it good to go, tickt
Aug 29, 2022
Aug 29, 2022 at 7:31 PM UTC
When Archimedes jumped out of his bathtub
Shouting ‘Eureka’ naked down the streets,
He had finally found a way to uncover
The deceit on behalf of His Majesty’s goldsmith.
Had he stolen gold replacing it with silver
While carving the divine wreath commissioned by the Tyrant?
The Golden Crown of Syracuse to be placed on the head
Of a goddess to be tested without being disturbed.
It all began with overflow as he dipped his body in water.
It was evident and easy to observe
That some objects floated while others sank,
Occupying more or less, tri-dimensional space.
Fluids rejecting or enveloping the intruder,
Displaced proportionally to the latter’s
Volume, density and mass, led to the revolutionary
Discovery of buoyancy, sparkling new beginnings.
The understanding suggested, that if an object displaced
An amount of water heavier than its weight, it would float.
The opposite being true, an object displacing
An amount of water lighter than its weight, would sink.
Fluid’s volition to reclaim its legitimate space.
Although the system was unable to assess the fraud,
As shape came into account and a kilo of solid gold
Was smaller than the kilo of golden wrath,
Dipped into water discrepancy ignored the math.
Unpredictably, the genius found higher purposes,
Buoyancy to determine whether a steel ship would sink
Or float, make it through the Mediterranean and beyond,
Where the Pillars of Hercules warn sailors to go no further.
Non plus ultra to the realms of the unknown.
The understanding suggesting that if an object displaced
An amount of water heavier than its weight, it would float,
Bigger volumes, lower densities, empty hulls and ballasts,
Succeeded in opening the gates to new oceans and new worlds.
Buoyancy to explain why our bodies float at sea
Apparently rejected by expelling waters claiming back their territory.
Gases being fluids, air acts the same,
With the extraordinary result that a kilo of feathers
Is indeed lighter that a kilo of lead.
By 0,9 grams.
Jun 4, 2017
Jun 4, 2017 at 6:45 AM UTC
the only greater justice
that i could ever know,
would be to pass
from my flimsy grip
of the world,
into iron clutches
of a higher esteem
than my own for what
has been written
by my callousness.
long gone are the days
of passing into folklore,
or to pass as an erosion
of memory in common song
in celebration of
some event that
pleases the people,
and the state.
perhaps akin to Hölderlin
passing into a patriarchal
***** of Heidegger -
or what can be said in ancient
tongue - toward the misty
ocular eternity:
toward a Homeric
third eye
of blindness: from all
the phantasmagorical ambitions
of man, having been
exposed to the shamanic
yet still returning to
the troughs of grey and boorish
affairs of monetary leverages:
as ever - wishing upon
Archimedes' joke of a pound(£) -
settled on a gamble for
the grand wish of
using a pound(£) as a lever -
to tickle Mammon into coughing
up riches.
Nov 30, 2016
Nov 30, 2016 at 8:23 AM UTC
in Syracuse
here
where the master's penetrating mind
unveiled some of her secret laws
as in revenge
the earth keeps trembling on
throughout the centuries
the winds are furious
the waves crash hard
upon the harbor rocks
Greek amphitheatre
Roman arena
the church built in
the Hellenistic shrine
the Renaissance palazzi
they all withstand
just barely
and with weakening strength
gravity's ceaseless
deconstructing
downward
pull
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 11:08 AM UTC
Each camera,each take and one more mistake to add to the last and the past that we dread is only two steps ahead or was that behind?
we look,do not find,the blind leading the blind,feeding on visions,leading to that collision and crash.
One more flash,one more take and one more ****** ache but the soul is intact.
Then the crew take their leave after bidding goodbye and the dread that we fear is nigh.
like 'pie in the sky' that's not there I get by on a wish and a wing,hoping that someone will bring me,
to some semblance of order that should be,
but every take, every flash,collision and crash I return to the stage where I age quite disgracefully,
fully aware that where I stand I shall fall.
A last call for the cast and the dread of the past reappears,in the circle or gods in the theatre at odds with the play,
I play on.
Mar 26, 2014
Mar 26, 2014 at 3:37 AM UTC
I have lost the Real
It has decayed, been slowly eaten by moths
But maybe I never even had it
Maybe it was lost long ago
Maybe the birth of Man was the death of reality
Man worships the simulacrum, he always has
They tell you we need oxygen, water and food
But that's a lie. We need only one thing
********
Truth and falsity are merely words, empty concepts
Twitter and condoms are all we have now
And we revel in it
We take the oath, sacrifice our first-born
Archimedes said if you gave him a place to stand he could move the world
When have we ever had a place to stand
Sep 25, 2013
Sep 25, 2013 at 10:31 PM UTC
Weigh this Balsam by Archimedes' Pell
Then try to be as catholic as you can
That even though the String you deny - tell,
Read this Milked News; Thus re-fashion a Man
Silly Riddlers! Tales which Rumours provide
Your harrowing Byzantine dared to spew
Cover the Gun; And later shoot-decide
Corn our efforts to wrap our Hearts a-new
So Pursuit un-needed for this espionage
When most of our Answers imprint your face
But who are we to pound? Or pin corsage
And steal what you worked so hard for your Grace?
Tally by tally, your Cross-Puzzle's bind
Un-Hook this Spirit; Un-Condemn this Mind.
Mar 16, 2013
Mar 16, 2013 at 9:27 AM UTC
It happened in Physics,
reading a Library art book under the desk,
(the lesson was Archimedes in the bath)
I turned a page and fell
for an older man, and anonymous at that,
hardly ideal –
he was four hundred and forty-five,
I was fourteen.
‘Eureka!’ streaked each thought
(I prayed no-one would hear)
and Paradise all term
was page 179
(I prayed no-one would guess).
Of course
my fingers, sticky with toffee and bliss,
failed to entice him from his century;
his cool grey stare
fastened me firmly in mine.
I got six overdues,
suspension of borrowing rights
and a D in Physics.
But had by heart what Archimedes proves.
Ten years later I married:
a European with cool grey eyes,
a moustache,
pigskin gloves.
Apr 9, 2018
Apr 9, 2018 at 8:03 AM UTC