Edward Groth III ’66 (letters, Dec. 12) points out that the puzzle Archimedes was trying to solve was not “buoyancy,” but rather, how to measure the volume of an irregularly shaped object. The other part of the legend, which he did not state, is that the monarch was concerned whether the crown that was made for him by a goldsmith actually contained as much solid gold as the goldsmith claimed. As I recall the legend, with the volume of the crown and the weight of the crown, Archimedes was able to determine that the monarch had been cheated.
