Heron of Alexandria

[Anabasis]

Wow! I saw a History Channel special on his inventions awhile ago and I was amazed at this man's many inventions. He created metal birds that sung with water using the principle of hydraulic force! He created small moving characters in a small box for the theatre to tell stories. He used a weight, ropes and sand/seeds which all worked together so that after a certain amount of time, a new story setting would spring up! This is what we might call the first Programme. Heron even had sounds and special effects for it to! Heron even might of produced the first steam engine as well (below), he was only one step away. But he used it as more of a toy for amusement. It makes one think, what if we had an industrial revolution 2000 years ago, what would the world look like today?
Look at his many invention on the second link!




en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria

www.history.rochester.edu/steam/hero/

[Hoplitesmores]

Mechanics can do wonders with inspiration

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

what if we had an industrial revolution 2000 years ago

a scorpio on a steam tank?

IIRC Heron showed the steam engine to an Roman emperor but when the emperor asked what to do with it, Heron had no idea so it was forgotten.

[Anabasis]

What other famous inventors were there? The only other ones I can think of are Vitruvius and Archimedes.

[john m roberts]

There was much working against inventors in the ancient world. First, abundant slave labor meant there was little incentive to create labor-saving devices. It was very different in the 18th century, when skilled labor was at a premium and capitalists were interested in anything that would speed up productivity and when there was a ready market for manufactured goods. Plus, the best minds were discouraged from working on such problems. Plato had laid down the law that a philosopher should never "manipulate matter." Only pure thought was worthy of a philosopher. Matter and its manipulation was the realm of mere workmen and a philosopher degraded himself by building things or even conducting experiments. Thus to be an inventor meant to be despised.

[Anabasis]

But what good are our thoughts and ideas if we cannot apply them in life? What was wrong with Plato? Why is it bad to create? :x ?

[caiusbeerquitius]

A steam cannon?

[Anabasis]

A steam cannon?

Was that Archimedes?

[Eleatic Guest]

What other famous inventors were there? The only other ones I can think of are Vitruvius and Archimedes.

Vitruv was no inventor, but a writer. Ctesibius was a famous inventor and Heron built upon his work. And a steam cannon was later attributed to Archimedes by Cicero I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctesibius

[Idomeneas]

indeed the steam cannon was attributed to Archimedes. A greek professor reconstructed it in scale in the 80's and it worked. It was quite simple in the way that it worked

[Anabasis]

Vetruvius designed the heliopolis and the tortoise, was it Ktesibios who built it?

[john m roberts]

But what good are our thoughts and ideas if we cannot apply them in life? What was wrong with Plato? Why is it bad to create? :x ?

The concept of progress did not yet exist. The idea that people could come up with innovations to make life better had not occurred to anyone. Plato wanted philosophers to be considered on a level with aristocrats. Aristocrats did not work with their hands (except for fighting), so philosophers should not work with their hands, only their minds.

[D B Campbell]

Vetruvius designed the heliopolis and the tortoise, was it Ktesibios who built it?

Vitruvius was an architect-engineer in Augustan Rome, who claimed special knowledge of catapults -- not strictly an inventor.
He and a contemporary writer named Athenaeus (probably the philosopher, Athenaeus of Seleucia) record various devices invented by previous engineers.

They mention the famous helepolis built for Demetrius Poliorcetes by an Athenian engineer named Epimachus. And they mention a tortoise designed by an engineer from Byzantium named Hegetor. We know nothing else about either Epimachus or Hegetor.

Athenaeus records an ingenious seesaw machine designed by Ctesibius, but Vitruvius names Ctesibius only in connection with hydraulics. (Of course, the Neronian writer Heron's book about artillery is based on Ctesibius.)

Hope that helps!

[Anabasis]

Do we still have Ingenious people like these anymore, these Men seem unreal. I guess with hard times, we needed hard people.

[Lepidina]

Does anyone have any idea how to make Heron's "holy water dispenser"? I call it the "Roman gumball machine". The outside looks like an antique perculator coffee pot but I'm am mechanically declined and have no idea what the insides would be.