Simple machines. Archimedes knew about them. He was particularly fond of the lever. If given a big enough lever and a place to stand, he claimed (in a letter to King Hiero of Syracuse), he could lift the earth.
(BUT COULD HE REALLY?)
"Plutarch says, "Once wrote to King Hiero of Syracuse, whose kinsman and friend he was, that this force could be used to move any weight. Carried away by the power of argument, he added that, were there another earth, he would go there and lift our own planet from it."
King Hiero, who was absolutely astonished by the statement, asked him to prove it. In the harbor was a ship that had proved impossible to launch even by the combined efforts of all the men of Syracuse. Archimedes, who had been examining the properties of levers and pulleys, built a machine that allowed him the single-handedly move the ship from a distance away. "
Simple Machines include the lever, something as straightforward as a wedge, and the one we're currently toying with in class: the pulley.
Physics Education Technology - Interactive Physics Simulations 
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