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Why did Archimedes want a sphere inside a cylinder engraved on his tomb?
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Archimedes
Archimedes, oil on canvas by Giuseppe Nogari, 18th century; in the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum, Moscow. Archimedes was an ancient Greek mathematician and inventor.
Archimedes requested that a sphere inscribed within a cylinder be engraved on his tomb because he was exceptionally proud of his discovery regarding the relationship between these two geometric shapes.12
In his treatise On the Sphere and Cylinder, Archimedes proved that the volume of a sphere is exactly two-thirds the volume of the cylinder that circumscribes itāmeaning the cylinder has a height and diameter equal to the diameter of the sphere. He also demonstrated that the surface area of the sphere is two-thirds that of the same cylinder, provided the cylinder's top and bottom circular bases are included. This mathematical achievement was considered one of his most significant contributions to geometry.324