In the third century BC, Hiero, ruler of Syracuse, commissioned a golden crown for a votive offering. Suspecting the goldsmith of adulterating the gold with silver, he asked Archimedes to prove it. While taking a bath, Archimedes suddenly saw his way and shouting ‘Eureka! I’ve got it’ he bounded away home to experiment with a water tub.

Archimedes realised that as gold is denser than silver, a crown of adulterated gold had to be bulkier than one of pure gold in order to reach the same weight. So he used a tub of water to show that Hiero’s crown displaced too much water to be pure gold, and the craftsman’s fraud was detected.

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