The unfinished circle
Murali
while he was sitting in a market place and drawing a circle. The
soldier raised his sword and the inventive genius engrossed in
mathematical speculations made a strange request: Let me finish this
circle first and then you can kill me. But the fool of a soldier did
not know who he was stabbing to death. It was, as you know, the
mathematician and scientist .......
Murali
Vinod Kumar
At the capture of Syracuse Marcellus had been aware that his victory had been held up much and long by Archimedes' machines. However, pleased with the man's exceptional skill, he gave out that his life was to be spared, putting almost as much glory in saving Archimedes as in crushing Syracuse. But as Archimedes was drawing diagrams with mind and eyes fixed on the ground, a soldier who had broken into the house in quest of loot with sword drawn over his head asked him who he was. Too much absorbed in tracking down his objective, Archimedes could not give his name but said, protecting the dust with his hands, "I beg you, don't disturb this," and was slaughtered as neglectful of the victor's command; with his blood he confused the lines of his art. So it fell out that he was first granted his life and then stripped of it by reason of the same pursuit.