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
Trammel of Archimedes in the form of the standard parametric equations for an ellipse in canonical position. The further equation is immediate as well. The trammel of Archimedes is an example of a four-bar linkage with two sliders and two pivots, and is special case of the more general oblique trammel. The axes constraining the pivots do not have to be perpendicular and the points "A", "B" and "C" can form a triangle. The resulting locus of "C" is still an ellipse. Trammel of Archimedes A trammel of Archimedes is a mechanism that generates the shape of an ellipse. It consists of two