Description: Galileo, Leonardo, Newton, and Tesla revered him: Archimedes of Syracuse--an engineer who single-handedly defied the world's most powerful army and a mathematician who knew more in 212 BCE than all of Europe would know for the next seventeen centuries. In this bold reimagining, modern polymath Nicholas Nicastro shines a new light on Archimedes' life and work. Far from the aloof, physically inept figure of historical myth, Archimedes is revealed to be an ambitious, combative, and fiercely competitive man. A genius who challenged an empire, Archimedes emerges in this book as the world's first fully modern scientist--millennia before his intellectual descendants transformed our world.
Brief description: Nicholas Nicastro is a novelist and science writer with articles in the New York Times, New York Observer, and others. His books include Circumference: Eratosthenes and the Ancient Quest to Measure the Globe.
Review Quotes: "An engaging account of the life and legacy of Archimedes of Syracuse. . . . Nicastro presents Archimedes's ideas and achievements with admirable clarity."--Liba Taub, director and curator of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, University of Cambridge