International Bath Day is celebrated every year on June 14 because it is classically considered the day of Archimedes’ greatest discovery. I remember that day well. Let me explain. Archimedes (we called him Archie, but that’s a story for another day) was a pretty smart fella and an innovative mathematician. He got the whole measurement of circles, it was a piece of pi for him. And he got straight lines and boxes and planes and all that. But when trying to measure the mass of an irregular shaped objects, like a chunk of gold, his regular geometry measurements didn’t help, considering all those nooks and crannies and such.

I remember he was in quite a funk, walking around mumbling to himself all the time as he tried to figure it out to no avail. Though we used a different calendar in Ancient Greece I remember the day was exactly one week before the start of summer which is how we know it is June 14 in our figuring. On that day he was lowering himself into his bathtub and realized that the water level rose in proportion to his rather irregular shape (no body shaming Archimedes, that’s not nice). Suddenly he realized if he could control the vessel and the amount of water he could use the same method to measure gold and other irregular shaped objects. Archimedes was good at that sort of transposition. I told you already he was a smart guy.

Anyway, Archie got so excited he jumped from his tub and ran dripping through streets shouting the Greek phrase for “I figured it out!” which is the word “EUREKA”. After we all had a good giggle about Archie’s mad dash through the neighborhood and someone tossed him a towel he settled down and explained his insight. We all had to admire his physics, if not his physique.

So you can celebrate International Bath Day today by jumping from your bath and running through your neighborhood in tribute. But please understand that this blogger is not responsible for bail money because of your celebration.

As always you can find more at http://www.walterthinnes.com and on Twitter @walterthinnes