Eureka (word) "Eureka! Eureka!" after he had stepped into a bath and noticed that the water level rose, whereupon he suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. (This relation is "not" what is known as Archimedes' principle—that deals with the "upthrust" experienced by a body immersed in a fluid.) He then realized that the volume of irregular objects could be measured with precision, a previously intractable problem. He is said to have been so eager to share his discovery that he leapt out of his bathtub
Eureka: A Prose Poem puns on their names, suggests Poe intended "Eureka" to be a burlesque. Alternatively, his criticism of these men indicate Poe's need to challenge their conclusions before making his own. "Eureka" was published in a small hardcover edition in March 1848 by Wiley & Putnam priced at 75 cents. Poe persuaded George Palmer Putnam, who had previously taken a chance on Poe by printing his only novel "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" in England, to publish "Eureka" after claiming this work was more important than Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity. Putnam paid Poe fourteen dollars for the work.