1. Who was the famous Greek mathematician and inventor who, legend has it, ran naked through the streets shouting "Eureka!" after making an important discovery in the bath?
From Quiz Famous Scientists for Kids
Answer:
Archimedes
Archimedes, who lived in the third century BCE, was one of the greatest scientists of the ancient world. A popular story about him is that a king asked him to find out if a crown that had been made for him was pure gold or had been dishonestly mixed with silver. Archimedes understood that because gold is denser than silver it takes up less space, so if he could measure the volume of the crown, he could determine its purity, but he did not know how to do this. While getting into a bath, he noticed that the water level rose as he sank in. He realized that if he placed the crown in water, he could measure the amount of water displaced and compare this to the amount displaced by a block of pure gold of the same weight. If the crown was impure, then it would displace more water. Archimedes is said to have invented many useful devices such as a screw that could pump water out of the hold of a ship, and a giant claw attached to a crane that could lift an enemy ship out of the sea to stop it from attacking his city.