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Born in Syracuse in 287 B.C. and
educated in Alexandria, Archimedes is known as the man who jumped up
out of his bathtub one day and ran naked through town shouting
“Eureka! Eureka!” In case your knowledge of Greek is as limited as
mine, “eureka” means “I have found it.”
Why did Archimedes do this? And what
did he find?
While taking a bath, he had solved the
dilemma of water displacement: namely, the relationship between the
weight and volume of an object in water versus the weight and volume
that was displaced when he got out of the tub.
Other than the term “eureka,” what did
Archimedes invent?
- The hydraulic screw, also known
as the Archimedes screw, which was used in pumping water from the
Nile River.
- The worm gear, which is still
used today.
- A system of ropes and pulleys
which he used to move a ship while it was docked on land,
effectively creating the world's first winch.
Archimedes is also credited with
inventing the world's first catapult, and legend has it that he
showed how to use a mirror to focus the sun's rays on an enemy ship,
causing it to burn. Known more as a mathematician than an inventor,
he also calculated the exact value of pi.
One of his contemporaries, Ctesibius
(pronounced ti-sib-e-us) lived in Alexandria around the same time
as Archimedes, but the two geniuses probably never met.
Ctesibius invented the water clock,
which was known back then as the clepsydra. The sundial had
already been invented but would only work during daylight hours on
sunny days. Ctesibius also created three inventions in conjunction
with each other:
- The valve, which led him to
create his next great invention…
- The suction pump, which was
used for fighting fires and led to his next great invention…
- The pump that was used as a
source of wind for the first organ.
The most accomplished of the Greek
inventors was Hero, who, like Ctesibius, was from Alexandria. Hero
learned a lot from Ctesibius, but since most of the records of their
time have been destroyed, it's not known if Hero lived during the
same time as Ctesibius or if he came after him and merely learned
from his writings.
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Like Italy's da Vinci, Hero is regarded
by history as a man whose work was hundreds of years ahead of his
time. Hero created the following inventions:
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The world's first steam engine, which
was called an aeolipile. The principle behind the aeolipile was that
every action has an “equal and opposite reaction,” which we all
learned in school. Sir Isaac Newton discovered this 1,600 years
later, and makers of jet engines used this same principle 1,900
years later.
-
A machine which would dispense a fixed
amount of holy water when a coin was put into it. This was the
world's first automatic vending machine.
-
The screw press, which extracted olive
oil from olives and juice from grapes.
The odometer, which measured the
distance that taxis traveled. He did this by making a pointer with
gears that counted the number of revolutions of the taxi cart's
wheel. Hero called his invention the hodometer. Ben Franklin would
later invent an odometer to measure the distance that mail carriers
would travel for each delivery.
Since no story about the ancient Greeks
would be complete without some sort of tragedy, we end this story
with the account of Archimedes' death in 212 B.C. When the Romans
invaded Syracuse, the Roman ruler ordered that Archimedes be left
alone. One of the soldiers didn't recognize him, though, and killed
him with his sword.
And that's the end of this Greek
tragedy. It's time to go fix myself a hero sandwich. [Paul
Niemann]
Invention Mysteries™ is written each
week by Paul Niemann, whose red hair ensures that he will never be
mistaken for Greek. He can be reached at
niemann7@aol.com.
Copyright Paul Niemann
2003
Last week's column in LDN:
"Who really invented baseball --
Alexander Cartwright or
Abner Doubleday?"
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