In 275 BC the man who was called to investigate the possible forgery of the king of Syracuse’s gold crown was Archimedes.
Archimedes knew that gold was denser than silver. That being the case, a piece of gold should be smaller than a piece of silver of the same weigh. So Archimedes compared the volume of the crown to the volume of the amount of gold that Hiero had given the goldsmith. That is when Archimedes used the bucket with water to introduce the crown and see how much water was displaced.
