Flea’s Jump

Aristophʹanēs, in the Clouds, says that Socratēs and Chæʹrephon tried to measure how many times its own length a flea jumped. They took in wax the size of a flea’s foot; then, on the principle of ex pede Herculem, calculated the length of its body. Having found this, and measured the distance of the flea’s jump from the hand of Socrates to Chærephon, the knotty problem was resolved by simple multiplication.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.