The pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria by of Alexandria Hero
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"The pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria" by of Alexandria Hero is an ancient engineering treatise written in the Hellenistic period. It surveys the behavior of air and fluids and applies those principles to ingenious devices—siphons, pumps, fountains, automata, sound-making figures, and early steam-driven demonstrations—often designed for temples, spectacle, and practical use. The opening of the treatise presents an editor’s and a translator’s prefaces explaining why a new translation was made, the uncertainties
around the author’s date and originality (versus Ctesibius), the state of manuscripts, and earlier editions. The text then launches into a clear exposition on the nature of air, void, and compression, arguing from everyday experiments (inverted vessels, cupping glasses, and suction) that practical vacuums can be made and that air is elastic. From there it quickly moves into numbered propositions: varieties of siphons (including enclosed and constant-flow versions), tools for priming siphons, globes and jars that release or retain liquids on command, vessels mixing hot/cold water or wine/water in set ratios, sound devices (whistling birds, trumpets, temple-door effects), coin-activated and temple libation tricks, constant-level cups, and demonstrations using compressed air. It culminates in early hydraulic machinery, including a compressed-air water jet, a valve design, and the beginnings of a fire pump, showing how the theory is turned into repeatable mechanisms. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Hero, of Alexandria |
|---|---|
| Editor | Woodcroft, Bennet, 1803-1879 |
| Translator | Greenwood, Joseph George, 1821-1894 |
| LoC No. | 07041532 |
| Uniform Title | Pneumatica. English |
| Title | The pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria |
| Alternate Title | Inventions of the ancients : Hero of Alexandria |
| Original Publication | London: Taylor Walton and Maberly, 1851. |
| Credits | Tim Lindell, A Marshall and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | QC: Science: Physics |
| Subject | Inventions -- History |
| Subject | Discoveries in science -- History |
| Subject | Pneumatics |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 77400 |
| Release Date | Dec 4, 2025 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 734 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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