Claw of Archimedes Claw of Archimedes The Claw (, "harpágē", "snatcher") of Archimedes (also known as the "iron hand") was an ancient weapon devised by Archimedes to defend the seaward portion of Syracuse's city wall against amphibious assault. Although its exact nature is unclear, the accounts of ancient historians seem to describe it as a sort of crane equipped with a grappling hook that was able to lift an attacking ship partly out of the water, then either cause the ship to capsize or suddenly drop it. These machines featured prominently during the Second Punic War in 214 BC, when the Roman Republic
Archimedes and the Cylinder I, II", "On Spirals", "On Conoids and Spheroids", "On Floating Bodies I, II", "On the Measurement of a Circle", "The Sand Reckoner". c. Boyer, Carl Benjamin "A History of Mathematics" (1991) "Arabic scholars inform us that the familiar area formula for a triangle in terms of its three sides, usually known as Heron's formula — "k" = , where "s" is the semiperimeter — was known to Archimedes several centuries before Heron lived. Arabic scholars also attribute to Archimedes the 'theorem on the broken chord' ... Archimedes is reported by the Arabs to have given several proofs