Biography
The man with the unlikely name, Hero of Alexandria was a Greek engineer and mathematician who lived in the first century. In experiments that were literally centuries ahead of his time, Hero of Alexandria built the first device powered by steam as well as the first use of wind as a power source for something besides a sailing vessel on the water. He taught at the legendary Library of Alexandria in his native home of Egypt and is considered one of the foremost brilliant minds of the distant past when it came to experimenting and innovating. Also known as Heron of Alexandria, his dates of birth and death are unknown. Many of his original works were lost, some in the great fire of Alexandria. Those that did survive include lecture notes on mechanics, pneumatics, physics, and mathematics. He was an early innovator in automated devices, which are often included in basic elements of teaching cybernetics.
One of his most famous inventions was known as a Hero’s engine, or an aeolipile It was a steam turbine that did not have blades, but rather a spinning container that turned due to torque provided by steam jets on its sides. It was so named for the Greek god of wind and air, Aeolus, along with the Latin word “pila” meaning ball.
A second invention was Heron’s foundation, a hydraulics machine that doubled as a children’s toy. This model is used in present-day physics classrooms to show how pneumatics and hydraulics work. It used pressure to make water burst out of the top. It was made popular for modern audiences in the BBC show “How Britain Worked.” Hero of Alexandria’s influence is also found in mathematics with Heron’s formula and Heron’s method. The former gives the area of a triangle in terms of the three lengths of its sides. He wrote it in his first-century work, Metrica. He also published a formula for computing the square roots of numbers. He also published works on pneumatics, automation, and how to measure lengths, including a discussion of an odometer, and how to build mechanical machines of war. He also built the world’s first vending machine, which allowed people to insert a coin and get holy water from a valve. The coin landed on a pan attached to a lever, which opened the valve for the water to flow as the coin’s weight was on it, then stopped the valve when the coin fell off.
Hero of Alexandria died around the year 70.
