The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria
Author: Hero (of Alexandria.)
Publisher:
Published: 1851
Total Pages: 154
ISBN-13:
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Pneumatica
Author: Hero of Alexandria
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2015-12-07
Total Pages: 102
ISBN-13: 9781519729002
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHero (or Heron) of Alexandria (c. 10-70 AD) was an ancient Greek mathematician and engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria during the height of the Roman Empire. He is considered the greatest experimenter of antiquity and his work is representative of the Hellenistic scientific tradition. Hero published a well recognized description of a steam-powered device called an aeolipile (hence sometimes called a "Hero engine"). Among his most famous inventions was a windwheel, constituting the earliest instance of wind harnessing on land. He is also said to have been a follower of the Atomists. Much of Hero's original writings and designs have been lost, but some of his works were preserved in Arab manuscripts.It is almost certain that Hero taught at the Musaeum which once included the famous Library of Alexandria, because most of his writings appear as lecture notes for courses in mathematics, mechanics, physics and pneumatics. Although the field was not formalized until the 20th century, it is thought that the work of Hero, his "programmable" automated devices in particular, represents some of the first formal research into cybernetics. The Pneumatica, or Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria include descriptions of machines working on air, steam or water pressure, including the hydraulis or water organ.
The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria
Author: Hero (of Alexandria.)
Publisher:
Published: 1851
Total Pages: 148
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRenaissance Fun
Author: Philip Steadman
Publisher: UCL Press
Published: 2021-04-13
Total Pages: 418
ISBN-13: 1787359158
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRenaissance Fun is about the technology of Renaissance entertainments in stage machinery and theatrical special effects; in gardens and fountains; and in the automata and self-playing musical instruments that were installed in garden grottoes. How did the machines behind these shows work? How exactly were chariots filled with singers let down onto the stage? How were flaming dragons made to fly across the sky? How were seas created on stage? How did mechanical birds imitate real birdsong? What was ‘artificial music’, three centuries before Edison and the phonograph? How could pipe organs be driven and made to play themselves by waterpower alone? And who were the architects, engineers, and craftsmen who created these wonders? All these questions are answered. At the end of the book we visit the lost ‘garden of marvels’ at Pratolino with its many grottoes, automata and water jokes; and we attend the performance of Mercury and Mars in Parma in 1628, with its spectacular stage effects and its music by Claudio Monteverdi – one of the places where opera was born. Renaissance Fun is offered as an entertainment in itself. But behind the show is a more serious scholarly argument, centred on the enormous influence of two ancient writers on these subjects, Vitruvius and Hero. Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture were widely studied by Renaissance theatre designers. Hero of Alexandria wrote the Pneumatics, a collection of designs for surprising and entertaining devices that were the models for sixteenth and seventeenth century automata. A second book by Hero On Automata-Making – much less well known, then and now – describes two miniature theatres that presented plays without human intervention. One of these, it is argued, provided the model for the type of proscenium theatre introduced from the mid-sixteenth century, the generic design which is still built today. As the influence of Vitruvius waned, the influence of Hero grew.
The Mechanical Hypothesis in Ancient Greek Natural Philosophy
Author: Sylvia Berryman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2009-08-06
Total Pages: 299
ISBN-13: 113948026X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIt has long been thought that the ancient Greeks did not take mechanics seriously as part of the workings of nature, and that therefore their natural philosophy was both primitive and marginal. In this book Sylvia Berryman challenges that assumption, arguing that the idea that the world works 'like a machine' can be found in ancient Greek thought, predating the early modern philosophy with which it is most closely associated. Her discussion ranges over topics including balancing and equilibrium, lifting water, sphere-making and models of the heavens, and ancient Greek pneumatic theory, with detailed analysis of thinkers such as Aristotle, Archimedes, and Hero of Alexandria. Her book shows scholars of ancient Greek philosophy why it is necessary to pay attention to mechanics, and shows historians of science why the differences between ancient and modern reactions to mechanics are not as great as was generally thought.
Giraffes, Telegraphs, and Hero of Alexandria
Author: Sabine Müller
Publisher:
Published: 2016
Total Pages: 430
ISBN-13: 9783944074139
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this book, stories portray the production of our built environment, guided by three characters: Giraffes, Telegraphs, and Hero of Alexandria. Having developed its long neck to reach the leaves of high trees, the giraffe represents the vernacular approach to architecture, in which construction follows forces of nature. The telegraph, in contrast, embodies the modernist paradigm, in which technology reigns supreme and forces nature to adapt. Inspired by Hero of Alexandria, SMAQ subscribe to a third paradigm ? using technology to optimize nature and, inversely, nature to assimilate technology. Their design concepts appear as tools ready to engage our contemporary urban environment, free of today's ecological and technological fundamentalism and in favor of experimentation, pleasure, and play.
The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Science
Author: Liba Taub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2020-01-30
Total Pages: 359
ISBN-13: 1107092485
DOWNLOAD EBOOKProvides a broad framework for engaging with ideas relevant to ancient Greek and Roman science, medicine and technology.
Medieval Robots
Author: E. R. Truitt
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2015-06-11
Total Pages: 296
ISBN-13: 0812246977
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMedieval robots took such forms as talking statues, mechanical animals, or silent metal guardians; some served to entertain or instruct while others performed surveillance or discipline. Medieval Robots explores the forgotten history of real and imagined machines that captivated Europe from the ninth through the fourteenth centuries.
The Astronomical Clock of Strasbourg Cathedral
Author: Günther Oestmann
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2020-04-20
Total Pages: 344
ISBN-13: 9004423478
DOWNLOAD EBOOKStrasbourg Cathedral’s astronomical clock is one of the most famous monuments to Time in the world. No other clock has been described and appreciated so often and in such a myriad of ways. There were three clocks built consecutively within the cathedral: the earlier fourteenth century clock has left little trace; a second clock was realized in 1570-1574; while the nineteenth century clock began as a proposal for repairs, but was intended by its maker as a replacement clock. This book gives a detailed outline of the artistic and technical components of the second clock, much of which survives, and it describes the astronomical indications and its underlying conceptual framework. The author has discovered a hitherto disregarded contemporary statement that the clock displays four ways of determining the ascendant as described by Ptolemy. He also shows that the Strasbourg clock is the result of a highly original reception of the architectural theory of Vitruvius and other mathematical and mechanical texts of Late Antiquity. Revised and updated translation from the German edition Die Straßburger Münsteruhr: Funktion und Bedeutung eines Kosmos-Modells des 16. Jahrhunderts. Published by GNT-Verlag in 1993. See inside this book.
Distinguished Figures in Mechanism and Machine Science
Author: Marco Ceccarelli
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2014-05-21
Total Pages: 347
ISBN-13: 9401789479
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book is composed of chapters that focus specifically on technological developments by distinguished figures in the history of MMS (Mechanism and Machine Science). Biographies of well-known scientists are also included to describe their efforts and experiences and surveys of their work and achievements and a modern interpretation of their legacy are presented. After the first two volumes, the papers in this third volume again cover a wide range within the field of the History of Mechanical Engineering with specific focus on MMS and will be of interest and motivation to the work (historical or not) of many.
