This is an alternate-reality fiction story.
The Story You Know
I learnt of Archimedes’ Principle in 8th grade. And the story of Archimedes shouting ‘Eureka’ was told.
Telling this story is kind of a global tradition in Physics class.
While laying down the basics, thus density = mass/volume, the Physics teacher decides to tell a historical narrative story about some guy called Archimedes.
Apparently, the one we know isn’t very accurate.
The true tale involves a ship and not gold, but let’s go with the apocryphal story.
To recap your high school experience:
Archimedes lived in Syracuse, and at some point, circa 250 BC, he was the King’s trusted scientist and adviser on technical matters.
One day, the King hired a goldsmith to make him a crown in a beautiful shape. The goldsmith obliged (had to, or off goes his head).
However, when the crown was returned, the King became anxious. What if his gold in the crown had been diluted with bronze and sh*t?
…
Diluted.
It was a hint at the idea of gold as money.
A hint at money dilution.
Something that would go on for centuries.
To this day.
You probably didn’t notice. Neither did I.
Everywhere Eureka
What if …
After his first success, Archimedes had gotten startup dreams.
What if he had started daydreaming about stopping gold dilution everywhere on earth?!
At only 37 years old.
That would have made more sense of the running naked in the street.
Still, many would have called him a crazy scientist.
But soon, after he had started seeding his ideas into every market vendor’s ear, forming a small cabal of anti-debasement vagrants who would change the world, the King of Syracuse himself would likely have seen him as a crazy megalomaniac.
Many years later, however, people would bow and make sure there was a Eureka can on every market stall in every market when Archimedes the 12th — Descendant of Archimedes of Syracuse, Conqueror of Financial Idiocy and Short-sightedness — happened to be passing.
Archimedes the 12th.
Emperor of Rome.
A Rome so great it baffles imagination.
And he would revolutionize the gold trade like nothing before.
They would call him ‘Archimedes the Greater than Alexander’.
Actually, he would evolve not just gold trade.
Trade.
Do Not Trust, Verify would be his mantra and that of his warriors.
***
How would trade work in Archimedes the 12th’s Rome?
Speed for the Rich
For starters, it would be a sin to trade with money quickly.
Transaction speed would be slow. And good.
Speed would be banned for lesser minds.
Why? Because they can’t see debasement if they trade fast.
Apparatus must be set up and things weighed, immersed, notes made, reports submitted.
Any nobody who preaches fast transactions would be prosecuted. And hanged.
Speedy transactions would be relegated to the top levels of society.
If the top brass messes up, it means a small fish messed up. Which is impossible, as the small fish had to weigh every coin they got and determine if it contained pure gold (to the 4th decimal place) before selling meat to their client.
As gold gets more valuable, people would buy in Bulk.
Most people would be ripped. Unlike us today.
Booms and busts would be understood very differently then.
“Because we never mess up money”, would announce Archimedes the 12th. Every quarter year, to his multiple millions of happy citizens.
Though after returning home, he would feel like a commoner, and not an Emperor.
Scratching his head in frustration, wondering why his grandpa made debasement so difficult.
“If I could go back in time, I’d speak sense into my ancestor Archimedes’s head.
What a richly moral fool. Ruling keeps getting harder and harder without some cash lever I can pull.
For I can stand anywhere, but have no cash lever to pull.
How then will I move the world?”
He kept lamenting like King David.
“Life is so much harder for rulers when all we can do is enjoy speedy transactions and arrest people for using speed.”
“If only I could debase.”
“Lord, how do I debase without being prosecuted by the damned Senate?”
He would pose the question to philosophers, preachers, and stoics, and none would be able to help.
The Answer
“Sir”, replied one young man. Brought to the court for his high intelligence.
Nobody knew who he was. But now, he was a somebody.
“Yes. Speak.”
“Your problem isn’t how to feel more financially powerful.”
“How so?”
“You’re bored, sir.”
“What?”
“If you summon anybody here today and convict them of speed trading, and they are guilty, they do not resist much.”
“Yes.”
“They gladly come to you and pay such hefty fines, that yours is the biggest Kingdom ever, and you have amassed gold, silver, silk, rubies, ladies even more beautiful than Solomon’s.”
The King smiled.
It was true, he met little resistance, yet his Kingdom kept expanding across Africa, Europe, and now, some of his thousands of Lord Counsellors were saying they should sail West. There was nothing West.
Dumbasses.
“So as you see, your highness. You are bored.
Bored that the system is working too well!
I say keep persecuting speed, and all will be well. Keep punishing those who don’t use the Eureka can, refusing to be enlightened like our great Archimedes was enlightened.”
The King was now relaxed.
“You’re a wise weasel with words. Go on.”
The weasel bowed his head.
“And yet,”
The weasel came closer. Too close.
Guards ran forward, but the Emperor put up his hand to stop them.
The weasel whispered:
“You do not realize, sir, that at this very moment, some of your thousands of Lords have seen that people are succeeding so much, they have invented paper money themselves to make trade easier between people”.
“WHAT?”
“It cannot be stopped, Sir, people trust them more than you.
They are more available.
Solving problems and disputes in real time.
Your empire is expanding so quickly that you will remain a figurehead.
You’ll not be in control much longer, your highness.”
The King, alas, was a 6-foot gorilla man.
He replied:
“You have brought me very distressing news. And for this, you will die.”
With one chop, the informant was dead on the ground.
And that started the decline of the Archimedean Empire.
***
Circa 2025 AD – Decadent Archimedeans Get Bitcoin Auro-meter
The family of Archimedes was a well-known royal family of spoiled brats and cheap skates who did nothing but profit from the invention of the auro-meter.
Simply because it was a digital descendant of the Eureka can.
Now, after the invention of Bitcoin, people freely raced to invent a Bitcoin Auro-meter.
With this auro-meter, the growth of paper bitcoins was greatly curtailed, and Bitcoin’s price in 2025 was well above the $1 million mark.
Still, however, the lords existed. And their massive influence ensured more paper and altcoins existed, enough to fool a lot of people.
Because the lords were wise, people kowtowed.
The lords weren’t evil; they just wished their genes made them part of the revered Archimedeans.
Ah, the Archimedeans.
Those rascals.
Most people had no beef with them and only wondered what the world would have been without them.
So, they let them be silly and useless.
While they continued trading slowly with modern Eureka cans nearby.
And the weasel? His descendants were the chroniclers of truth. In its entirety, it pissed everyone off.
***
