Archimedes of Syracuse is generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians who ever lived. So revered was his wisdom and celebrated his legacy that legendary scholars who lived nearly two millennia after Archimedes' death in 212 BC hailed him across the ages. Galileo called him "superhuman". Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz remarked that he spoiled genius itself. Christiaan Huygens said that Archimedes was "comparable to no one".
Archimedes was one of the first thinkers to really drill down into the mathematics of the material world. It wasn't enough for him to see a shape or a physical process and accept it as is – he wanted to know the numbers and equations that underpinned its form and function. Archimedes discovered geometrical theorems for determining the area of a circle, the surface area and volume of a sphere, the area of an ellipse, and the area under a parabola. He also approximated π to within a few decimals of its true value. These are just a few of his many accomplishments.
