The Book of Mechanics

...is more admirable and useful than Mechanics: from which so many and such great things contributing to the utility of the human race proceed; certainly these deeds of Archimedes were excellent and very famous; which, however, if they are compared to many other things which can be said and asserted about him, seem indeed small to me. For those things which have been commemorated up to this point (although perhaps not all), many others have also performed, and such similar ones exist, and there are perhaps still men gifted with such sharpness of wit who would not fear to undertake such things: but there exist some outstanding works of Archimedes himself, of which the like were neither done before him, nor since him, nor are they to be expected to be done by anyone in the future: for his writings are the most admirable and excellent of all, in which both the sharpness of wit, the most subtle inventions, and perfect doctrine are clearly seen, for the writings of Archimedes so excel and surpass the writings of other mathematicians in all these respects; that those of others can indeed easily be compared among themselves, but with those which were left to us by Archimedes, they can in no way be compared, as is most clearly rendered conspicuous (omitting others in the meantime) from those things which he left written concerning the sphere and the cylinder, and from those concerning equal weights: since, for their excellence and dignity, they should rightly be printed in golden letters: for the book on the sphere and the cylinder was held in such excellence among the writings of Archimedes that a sphere and a cylinder were placed at his tomb; which, having been seen by Cicero, he at once understood that it was the tomb of Archimedes: concerning whose discovery, on account of the excellence of the man, he glories greatly. Then, in what manner could we defend him from the rash daring of uttering a vain speech (while he speaks thus: give me where I may stand, and I will move the earth), if he had not left these writings which exist concerning equal weights? For from these, having attained knowledge of the proportion of weights and distances, it becomes manifest that it is not contrary to reason, nor entirely alien to nature, that the earth could be moved, if a place for standing were given. Which, when it can also be proven by various instruments from our volume of Mechanics published some years ago: since it was shown there in many ways that a given weight can be moved by a given power: where the demonstrations established by us [are] to those which are in...