I think this is the right forum for this question.

I have to do a research paper for HIST 101, can any of you suggest an ancient phylosopher or engineer? I remember reading once about one who designed on paper alot of # before his time. Like planes, and all kinds of stuff.

Anyhow I hope so, I don't know of any of them by name but I remember a story my father once told me.

An ancient society got word from a scout that they were going to be attacked by their rival nation. Their navy was at sea. All they had was about 1000 gaurds. The king asked his phylosopher (name of who I want you to post ) and the phylosopher had the 1000 men polish their shields all night long. When the sun rose the enemy navy was entering the bay through a narow pass between two cliffs one ship at a time. The 1000 men stood around the bay and let the sun reflect off of their shield onto the ground infront of them, then guided the beam of light up and onto the ship's front. One by one they had enough collective light to catch fire to the front of the ships. As they came in the 1000 men distroyed the rival navy and scared their enemy, who didn't understand what evil power did this, into submission.

Has anyone every heard this story before? More importantly, does any one know who the phylosipher was?

Thank you,

I think one of the guys you are looking for is Leonardo da Vinci inventor of the helicopter and parachute.

I suggested the same on another thread but he was Rennaissance, hardly ancient.

Hero, from Alexandria, was an ancient Greek engineer who worked with steam and air pressure as power sources but I don't think he was much into full on aeronautical design because flights back then were still too darned expensive. He developed (steam) jet turbines with his aeolipile.

The philosopher you're looking for, the one who instructed the soldiers to polish the shields.......


I think you're referring to Archimedes and the siege of Syracuse.

The tale was disbelieved for many years, but was apparently replicated some time in the 20th century under the same conditions with success . I'm sorry I cant remember where.

Archimedes is the guy who determined the density of an object in relation to it's volume in water. Apparently he's the one who ran through the streets shouting " Eureka!!!" when he found the solution.

Does that help any?

Well, if I wanted to choose someone, my all-time favorite philosopher is:
SOCRATES
However, from the same Classical Greek Era, there's quite a few good ones:
Lykurgos, who set the tone for the fierce Spartan warrior-society.
Thales, who could predict eclipses, figured out the height of Egypt's Great Pyramid by measuring its shadow, and even cornered the market in olive oil by putting a small down payment on every olive press, among a few other things.
Pythagoras, who had a lot of revolutionary discoveries in mathematics, including proving the existance of Irrational Numbers as well as his contributions to music (as already mentioned).

Archimedes was already mentioned, but something that *wasn't* mentioned is that he's responsible for the Archimedes Screw, the first man-powered water pump.

Do you want some more? In Ancient Egypt, perhaps?



[Edited on 28-9-2003 by MidnightDStroyer]

You could just be typing fast here, I'm not sure...but definitely use a spell-checker before you hand in that paper....


I believe that Archimedes was in fact the philosopher in question, as some have pointed out...

Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle are some favorite philosophers, and you should have no trouble finding tons of information about them...(easy way out). Undoubtedly, most of your classmates will stick with these, so I'd recommend avoiding them, if you want your paper to stand out. If your professor actually learns something new by reading your paper, you are virtually assured of getting a higher mark....

Definetely Archimedes, did a report on him a while back. Not for the polishing of the shields but for Philosophy class.