Ancient Science · Part 19 · Maps · B1–B2
Hero of Alexandria: A Spinning Steam Ball, Automatic Temples and a Coin-Operated Machine
Part 19 of Ancient Science: half a century after Philo, Hero of Alexandria will describe a ball that spins with steam, temple doors that open when the altar fire is lit, and the first coin-operated machine. Sophia shows how they worked, which were useful and which were made to look like miracles, and why the steam ball never became an engine. In order to, so that, so heavy that, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight I must look into the future again. In about fifty years, a teacher here in Alexandria called Hero will write books about machines that seem like magic: doors that open by themselves, a ball that spins with steam, a machine that gives out holy water when you put in a coin.
Not quite an engine, Marcos. A toy, and a clever one. Many of Hero’s machines were made for temples, so that worshippers would see what looked like miracles.
Hero (or Heron) lived in Alexandria in the first century CE. We know almost nothing about his life. One of his books mentions an eclipse of the moon which astronomers have dated to 62 CE, so he was working around then. He may have taught at the Museum.
Unlike Ctesibius, Hero is well preserved: several of his books survive, in Greek or in Arabic. They are practical handbooks: Pneumatics, on machines worked by air, water and steam; Automata, on self-moving theatres; Mechanics, on lifting heavy weights; Metrics, on measuring areas and volumes; and The Dioptra, on surveying land and digging tunnels.
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