Archimedes (c. 287-212 BCE)

The Death Of Archimedes by Luca Giordano, 1652.

Archimedes, the great Greek mathematician and inventor, elucidated plane and solid geometry, arithmetic, and mechanics. He was a solitary, eccentric figure and appears to have possessed some traits that suggest he may have exhibited autism/Asperger Syndrome.

Life History

Archimedes was born in Syracuse, Sicily. His father was the astronomer Pheidias, and he is said to have been related to Hiero II, tyrant of Syracuse. “He was one of the greatest mechanical geniuses of all time, if not the greatest when we consider how little he had to go on” (Bell, 1986, p. 29).

He spent most of his life in Syracuse. According to Strathern (1998), “Archimedes appeared to have lived a normal eccentric life of a mathematician. Quiet, solitary, and quietly potty — with only the occasional spectacular incursion into the public arena” (p. 72).

After Syracuse was captured during the Second Punic War (despite the deployment of Archimedes’s mechanical expertise in its defense), he was killed by a Roman soldier. There are two stories of the exact circumstances of his death: (a) that he was working on a circle in the sand and said to the soldier, “Don't disturb my circle”; and (b) that he refused to go to see the Roman consul Marcellus until he had worked out a mathematical problem, whereupon the soldier became angry and killed him.

Work

In mechanics, Archimedes defined the principle of the lever and is credited with inventing the compound pulley. He also invented an ingenious screw that was used as a water pump. The Archimedes screw remains in use in the Nile Delta to this day, and the same principle is used for raising grain and sand when loading bulk carriers.

Plutarch stated that Archimedes “Did not deign to leave behind him any written work on such subjects (practical engineering abilities and inventions) ... he regarded as sordid and ignoble the construction of instruments, and in general every art directed to use and profit, and he only strove for those things which, in their beauty and excellence, remained beyond all contact with the common needs of life” (Strathern, 1998, p. 25). Calculus, which developed out of his method, has been described as the most useful mathematical tool ever invented for describing the workings of the real world (Bell, 1998).

Some are of the opinion that Archimedes did in fact use integral calculus in his treatise On Conoids and Spheroids, which expands geometry beyond the rigidity imposed upon it by Plato and his mystical attitude toward forms. (Plato believed that forms or ideas were the ultimate reality out of which the world was made — a development from Pythagoras’ belief that “all is number.” Plato believed in God and geometry.)

Possible Indicators of Asperger Syndrome

Like many mathematicians, Archimedes tended to relate to other mathematicians (e.g., Conon of Samos). A famous legend tells that he jumped out of the bath and ran without clothes through the
streets shouting “Eureka! Eureka!” (“I have found it!”). This relates to Archimedes’s principle that a floating body will displace its own weight in fluid. According to Strathern (1998), “Archimedes was a
lonely sort of eagle” (p. 29).

Narrow Interests and Obsessiveness

Archimedes was fascinated by pure mathematics. He put in long and arduous hours of theoretical work, which established him as the finest mathematical mind for almost two thousand years to come.

Any individual who spends most of his waking life in obsessive mental activity attracts wild anecdotes, and Archimedes was no exception. According to Plutarch, “He was so bewitched by thought that he always forgot to eat and ignored his appearance. When things became too bad his friends would forcibly insist that he had a bath, and make sure that afterwards he anointed himself with sweet smelling oils, yet even then he would remain lost to the world, drawing geometric figures” (Strathern, 1998, p. 27). Plutarch stated that Hieron II, the king of Syracuse and a friend and relation of Archimedes, was not happy with this kind of behavior and “emphatically requested and persuaded (Archimedes) to occupy himself in some tangible manner with the demands of reality” (Strathern, 1998, p. 29).

According to Bell (1986), Archimedes is a perfect specimen of the popular conception of what a great mathematician should be. Like Newton, he left his meals untouched when he was deep in his mathematics.

Idiosyncrasies

In addition to narrow interests and pervasive obsessiveness, Archimedes demonstrated a number of idiosyncrasies. According to Bell (1986),

In one of his eccentricities Archimedes resembled another great mathematician, (Karl) Weierstrass (1815-1897). According to a sister of Weierstrass, he could not be trusted with a pencil when he was a young school teacher if there was a square foot of clear wallpaper or a clean cuff anywhere in sight. Archimedes beats this record. A sanded floor or dusted hard smooth earth was a common sort of “blackboard” in his day ... Sitting before the fire he would rake out the ashes and draw in them. After stepping from the bath he would anoint himself with olive oil ... and then, instead of putting on his clothes, proceed to lose himself in the diagrams, which he traced with a fingernail on his own oily skin. (p. 30)

Conclusion

Although the relevant information on Archimedes’s life is somewhat scanty, it would appear that the great mathematician may have met the criteria for Asperger Syndrome.

- Michael Fitzgerald, Former Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry