WHEN historians examined Western civilization in the twentieth century, one area of intellectual accomplishment that stood out above all others was the twentieth century’s “age of science”.
Science discovered our very sense of who we are, how our minds work, how our world came to be, how it works and our proper role in it, our ultimate origins, and our ultimate fate were all influenced by scientific thinking.
But the only drawback then was scientists only communicated among themselves and published their breakthroughs in their journals which were considered sacrosanct – and strictly out of reach of the general public.
However, Archimedes of Syracuse was the only scientist of that erstwhile period known to have advertised his scientific discovery publicly.[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”block” ihc_mb_who=”unreg” ihc_mb_template=”3″ ]
The story has it – that Archimedes, had solved a problem that had occupied him for some time. The problem was determining the gold purity of a royal crown that King Hiero had commissioned. The King was suspicious that the goldsmith had deceived him by using impurities and asked Archimedes to determine whether or not the crown was pure gold.
The word “Eureka” means “I have found it” in Greek. Archimedes had his “Eureka” inspiration while taking a bath and noticing that the water overflowed when he entered the bathtub. This was the discovery of the law of buoyancy. And needless to say, he ran out into the street stark naked in all his excitement.
Perhaps, this was science communications at its best, though surpassingly anecdotal and a brazen novelty.
As for the crown, it was found to contain significant content other than gold, by calculating its density from the amount of water displaced in the tub.
As this photo indicates, it is a different take today in the new millennium.
A participant at a recent science forum pays intense attention and even records video footage while a woman scientist shares her thoughts during this conclave – a far cry from the days when good old science was in its genesis and rising to become a renaissance – and spoken and shared among scientists themselves.
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