Heron of Alexandria .
Before I write anything in this post, I consider it obligatory on my part to mention the source of the following Information. I concede that all the little stuff that I have learnt about Heron comes from Mr Michael Lahanas’ Website ( http://www.mlahanas.de ). A physicist extraordinaire , Michael maintains an excellent website which deals with all the historical information about Greece, be it ancient, medieval or modern. Many thanks to his efforts and research in putting forth so much information about this little known scientist. All the information about Heron is available on his site : Link
In some of my previous entries, I have discussed about Heron’s crude steam engine. Heron, an extraordinary Mechanic and inventor, probably understood much more than what we attribute to ancient generation. This is a mechanism for opening Temple doors built by Heron:
As observed, Heron knew that Air was matter and that it expanded on heating. This is a simple mechanism he developed for opening Temple doors. When altar was heated , air expanded pushing out the water from the reservoir into the bucket. Growing weight of water in the bucket pulled up the mass on the left revolving the hinged doors in the process. Brilliant !
Heron, more of an engineer than a scientist, built many more machines which reflect his deep understanding of Mechanics and Physics. As is demonstrated in this following video ( again courtesy the above mentioned site), the intellect of Heron was put to use by the powerful brass in religion and army. His inventions are mostly restricted to Artillery and those made to amuse devotees at the temples. Interested may look at this link to know why these machines were not put to use and led to the revolution that it should have otherwise ( Social and political reasons ).
I am currently reading about Hero’s inventions (Reference is mentioned on the currently reading page on the blog ). A possible challenge would be to document all the important and interesting inventions here with mathematical analysis ( a reasonable problem being calculating efficiencies and simple applications of each of these mechanisms). Since most of these inventions are redundant today, in my perspective, understanding them would probably help a student like me in developing a structured thought process that goes in while designing machines or mechanisms ( I admit I haven’t really learnt anything new here ! ).
Comments welcome !
Here’s an informative video about Hero’s inventions and how they were put to use ( better read as misuse ).
