Mad scientist Jim Mueller stopped by the other day and told me an interesting story. It was about a famous scientist named Archimedes (Ark-a-me-dees).  He lived a very long time ago. He loved simple machines just like the one we played with in The Fisher Bing game! Now here’s the story:

Archimedes once said, “Give me a place to stand, and I can move the Earth.”

How did he think he could do that? By using simple machines such as pulleys and levers, of course. Archimedes was a master of all the simple machines. He did not invent them but he did put them to some amazing uses.

For example, a story goes that the Greek King Hiero had a problem. He had had a boat made that was so large no number of men could get it into the water. What good is a boat that is stuck on land?

The king told Archimedes his problem and Archimedes said, “Pfffft, I can launch that boat with one hand!”

Sure enough after several days, Archimedes created a system of levers and pulleys that allowed him to move the boat by himself…with one hand. According to one version of the story, the king did not believe that Archimedes was doing it on his own and that there must be some trick.

Archimedes said, “Okay, you do it.”

The king hesitantly gave it a try and sure enough, in front of a huge crowd, the king moved the ship.

At that point, the king shouted out, “From this day forth, Archimedes is to be believed in everything that he may say.”

Archimedes was an unbelievable scientist and mathematician. There are many terrific stories surrounding his life and discoveries. I would highly recommend taking the time to look into him a bit further. I bet he would have really liked going fishing with me and Bong.