TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “A change in motion is proportional to the motive force impressed and takes place along the straight line in which that force is impressed.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index H > Category: Hiero

Hiero Quotes (2 quotes)

Archimedes … had stated that given the force, any given weight might be moved, and even boasted, we are told, relying on the strength of demonstration, that if there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this. Hiero being struck with amazement at this, and entreating him to make good this problem by actual experiment, and show some great weight moved by a small engine, he fixed accordingly upon a ship of burden out of the king’s arsenal, which could not be drawn out of the dock without great labor and many men; and, loading her with many passengers and a full freight, sitting himself the while far off with no great endeavor, but only holding the head of the pulley in his hand and drawing the cords by degrees, he drew the ship in a straight line, as smoothly and evenly, as if she had been in the sea. The king, astonished at this, and convinced of the power of the art, prevailed upon Archimedes to make him engines accommodated to all the purposes, offensive and defensive, of a siege. … the apparatus was, in most opportune time, ready at hand for the Syracusans, and with it also the engineer himself.
Plutarch
In John Dryden (trans.), Life of Marcellus.
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodate (17)  |  According (236)  |  Actual (118)  |  Amazement (19)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Arsenal (5)  |  Art (680)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonished (10)  |  At Hand (7)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boast (22)  |  Burden (30)  |  Convinced (23)  |  Cord (3)  |  Defensive (2)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Engine (99)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Far (158)  |  Fix (34)  |  Force (497)  |  Freight (3)  |  Full (68)  |  Give (208)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hand (149)  |  Head (87)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hold (96)  |  King (39)  |  Labor (200)  |  Load (12)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Most (1728)  |  Move (223)  |  Offensive (4)  |  Passenger (10)  |  Power (771)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pulley (2)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Ready (43)  |  Rely (12)  |  Remove (50)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Show (353)  |  Siege (2)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Small (489)  |  Smoothly (2)  |  State (505)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strike (72)  |  Syracuse (5)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weight (140)

These machines [used in the defense of the Syracusans against the Romans under Marcellus] he [Archimedes] had designed and contrived, not as matters of any importance, but as mere amusements in geometry; in compliance with king Hiero’s desire and request, some time before, that he should reduce to practice some part of his admirable speculation in science, and by accommodating the theoretic truth to sensation and ordinary use, bring it more within the appreciation of people in general. Eudoxus and Archytas had been the first originators of this far-famed and highly-prized art of mechanics, which they employed as an elegant illustration of geometrical truths, and as means of sustaining experimentally, to the satisfaction of the senses, conclusions too intricate for proof by words and diagrams. As, for example, to solve the problem, so often required in constructing geometrical figures, given the two extremes, to find the two mean lines of a proportion, both these mathematicians had recourse to the aid of instruments, adapting to their purpose certain curves and sections of lines. But what with Plato’s indignation at it, and his invectives against it as the mere corruption and annihilation of the one good of geometry,—which was thus shamefully turning its back upon the unembodied objects of pure intelligence to recur to sensation, and to ask help (not to be obtained without base supervisions and depravation) from matter; so it was that mechanics came to be separated from geometry, and, repudiated and neglected by philosophers, took its place as a military art.
Plutarch
In John Dryden (trans.), Life of Marcellus.
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodate (17)  |  Adapt (70)  |  Admirable (20)  |  Against (332)  |  Aid (101)  |  Amusement (37)  |  Annihilation (15)  |  Appreciation (37)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Art (680)  |  Ask (420)  |  Back (395)  |  Base (120)  |  Both (496)  |  Bring (95)  |  Certain (557)  |  Compliance (8)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Construct (129)  |  Contrive (10)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Curve (49)  |  Defense (26)  |  Design (203)  |  Desire (212)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Embody (18)  |  Employ (115)  |  Example (98)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Figure (162)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Good (906)  |  Help (116)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indignation (5)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Invective (2)  |  King (39)  |  Line (100)  |  Machine (271)  |  Marcellus (2)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mere (86)  |  Military (45)  |  More (2558)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Neglected (23)  |  Object (438)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Originator (7)  |  Part (235)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Place (192)  |  Plato (80)  |  Practice (212)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proof (304)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Recourse (12)  |  Recur (4)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Repudiate (7)  |  Request (7)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Roman (39)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Section (11)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Sense (785)  |  Separate (151)  |  Shameful (3)  |  Solve (145)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Supervision (4)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Syracuse (5)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.