The originator is believed to be an amateur scientist by the name of Archimedes. This was in a time WAY before Hugh Heffner took to wearing smoking jackets - about 2,200 years ago.

Archimedes was up against a deadline. He had agreed to deliver the final draft of his script Waterworld at the local Syracuse film festival. However he was having major problems in creating believable characters and was even suspect that there was a commercial market for this project. So he ran himself a deep bath and prepared to do a re-write as he soaked in the tub.

His hand-maiden was new to the job and had inadvertantly used goats milk instead of his usual ass's milk! Well, as everyone knows - and I know you are ahead of me on this - goat's milk has greater viscocity than ass's - and so Archimedes slipped on his ass's milk as he got in.

History records that the tub overflowed and and that he screamed 'Eureka' (I've got it)! What history does not record was that at that time in history that the '-eka' in EUREKA is soft and therefore has been misinterpreted by modern scholars. What he in fact said was (going by 10 Things I didn't know about Dead Greek Guys available at your local checkout), was "Holy @&$#* what idiot used goats' milk instead of Ass's?!"

Anyway the upshot of it is that in order to placate the furious Archimedes, the hand-maiden was put to better use with her hands and the wasted goats milk. That aside, the script of Waterworld was soaked through and almost illegible (but not enough since it was later rediscovered and made into a movie). Anyway, Archimedies was all in a fluster concerning exactly what to do about the deadline that was fast approaching.

Archimedes was very wealthy at the time so had someone else pace up and down for him. Then it came to him like a bolt out of the blue "Sacred blue" he said to himself! "Why don't I make an opportunity out of a difficulty?" And that is exactly what he did. He quickly re-drafted the story of Waterworld into a PRINCIPLE! That is how Archimede's Principle - even to this day - states that: the buoyancy support force is exactly equal to the weight of water displaced. Simply stated: regardless of your size or good looks, when you get into a tub, the water will naturally try to get out.

At the film festival Archimedes was hailed as a genius and the rest, as they say, is history.