High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Method of Mechanical Theorems is a work by Archimedes which contains the first attested explicit use of infinitesimals. The work was originally thought to be lost, but was rediscovered in the celebrated Archimedes Palimpsest. The palimpsest includes Archimedes` account of the "mechanical method", so called because it relies on the law of the lever, which was first demonstrated by Archimedes, and of the center of gravity, which he had found for many special cases.