Kermit, JS is right and if you hadn't heard it in a college history class you'd be asking...Ah... oh yeah, you did ask.
Well the pie cutter thing is not true, I don't think. Archimedes is reported to have discovered the principles of displacement while taking a bath after being asked to figure out if the king's jeweler had cheated the king and not used all the gold he said he used. The legend is that Archimedes got so excited that he leapt from his bath and ran naked through the streets of Syracuse yelling. "Eurika!" (translation: "I have found it!"). He supposedly used mirrors to intensify the Sun's rays and concentrate them on the attacking Roman ships and light them on fire as they entered the harbor. He is credited with the use of a huge lever with a hook on one end with which he grabbed the enemy ships, as they pulled up to the quay, and flipped them over. He even invented a type of ballista to use against the Romans. Cicero, the Roman King, gave orders to not kill Archimedes but Archimedes was shot by an arrow from an anonymous foot soldier who likely didn't know who Archimedes was. He, Archimedes, not the anonymous soldier, is famed for the saying, "Give me a lever and a place to stand and I can move the World."
The stuff about Phi (the Golden Mean or Golden Ratio or Golden Section) is all true. and Euclides is the Father of Geometry in that modern Geometry is based upon Eclid's (Euclides) Postulates that define points, lines and the behavior or relationships of lines upon which all Euclidean (Flat plane Geometry) is founded. There are other Geometries, Spherical (That which we use when navigating across larger distances across the Earth's surface, and Hyperbolic Geometry (Bolyai-Lobachevsky Geometry), to name the other two most popular geometries. Interestingly, except for the infamous Parallel Postulate, Euclides' postulates all still apply for those other Geometries.
There is some really funny stuff in the History of Math, Philosophy and Science. There is also some really tragic stuff too. most of the tragedy was/is about jealousy and ego, nothing more.
There is a saying, "Pi is for circles while Phi is for beauty." While Pi actually relates to a useful geometric calculation, Phi seems to be rarely used, but people love the beauty of Phi. I take the philosophical position that the feeling of the experience of beauty is the feeling we experience for truth. When we feel the rightness of something, we are filled with the same feeling we get when experiencing beauty. beauty is the sense of rightness, that things are as they should be, true. Truth and beauty, are inseparable in this way. If we value truth, than we will always find within the truth, beauty. So, Phi, being for beauty is also for truth. Sailing is such. It is the feeling of rightness in the World, truth and beauty as one. I know you all feel it, no mater what your philosophy. you are sailors for that reason.
-Will (Dragonfly)
. Cheers