Bitch be Trippin' SPHERES*

How awesome were the ancient Greeks? Pretty awesome.

In high school - or for some of us junior high school - we learned about the rough history of Ancient Greece. Maybe we read the Iliad and Odyssey, and if were really lucky the Aeneid (read the part where Virgil explains how Aeneas's descendants magically include the patron of the poem, then the link will make sense. Virgil was a man-whore fo' sho'). We learned about Pericles and the Battle of Marathon, which also taught us never to run 26 miles because the first guy who did it freaking died. Chances are good you've seen the only good movie Zack Snyder ever made, The 300.

You know the Greeks invented Democracy, and also invented the idea of keeping slaves from participating (an idea some Americans might still get behind).

All those things are great, sure. But the most truly awesome thing the Greeks did wasn't any of that namby-pamby voting stuff. It was giving us Archimedes.

You might have heard the story of this lunatic Greek dude running naked through the streets of Syracuse, screaming "Eureka!" (the original Syracuse, not this other one). That was Archimedes, because he'd just realized he could tell the difference between pure gold and the fake stuff based on its density.

That's right. Dude invented fucking DENSITY. He didn't have pants even when he wasn't naked, but that didn't stop him from being a genius and ruining the lives of countless metallurgical charlatans for the last 2,200 years.

Anyway, Syracuse was under seige by the Romans during the Second Punic War, and at the time seiges from sea went something like this: Sail to target. Pull up against target's wall. Toss up grappling hooks. Pull self up. Slaughter soldiers. Pillage, rape, generally have a grand old time.

Archimedes saw that step two, pulling up against the wall, gave him an excellent opportunity to stick his middle finger up at the Romans. He designed, and had built, a gigantic crane with a claw at the end to lift and flip the Roman boats. Take that, Marcus Claudius Marcellus!

Well, nonetheless the Romans still managed to capture Syracuse, and stormed into the city. A soldier found Archimedes, who was considered a major asset by the Romans, and told him to come see the new captor of the city, that selfsame Marcellus.

Archimedes' response? "Bitch, please, I'm doing math."

The soldier, in a fit of rage because he never got past pre-algebra in high school, slew Archimedes. And so died the king of all nerds.


*Archimedes's favorite mathematical proof was that a sphere that is the same height and diameter of a rectanglar cylinder will have 2/3 the volume of that cylinder. Who on God's green earth not only has a favorite proof, but the time to consider whether or not it's his favorite to begin with? Archimedes, that's who.