The mathematics in Archimedes' works is extremely sophisticated, and they are well worth reading in detail for their mathematical content even today. Many, perhaps most, of the works of Archimedes of which we have some mention have been lost in time. The sources of what we do have are (1) Greek mss. passed down through late medieval Europe, (2) the famous Palimpsest, (3) the isolated Cattle Problem, that came to light only in the late 18th century. Some of his extant works justify calling him the first mathematical physicist. He might also be labeled with some justice the first applied mathematician.

Archimedes is also the subject of many anecdotes with little evidence for their truth. We do not have any solid evidence for the date of his birth. We do not know whether he ever left Syracuse. We do not really know (and ome of us doubt) whether he shouted "Eureka!" over an apparently trivial observation. There are grounds for speculation about things like this, but again the best evidence about Archimedes internal evidence from the mathematical works. The Eureka story, for example, gives only an echo of his very interesting papers "On Floating bodies".

Summary: the English article is childish and disorganized. The reference list is deceptive - most of them are to sources that quote other sources that quote ... in a nearly endless recursion, going back to Alexandrian gossips. As with Eudoxus, it would be nice to have a good discussion of the ancient sources, as well as some idea of the mathematics. The number of ancient sources is not that great, and one could even imagine directly quoting all of them.

The German article is just weak.