Ancient Mechanics in general

● Texts vs. objects

● Texts can be theoretical (math theory), some are practical
● Ex: Antikythera Mechanism
○ Ancient mechanical “computer”
● Why not a lot of mechanics?
○ Plutarch says many people thought that construction of machines was for amusement
○ Plato said applications to mechanics was a corruption and destruction of pure geometry
■ Applied to sensory life, which he hated
● engineer = second class

Five Simple Machines

● In use by 4th BC
○ Lever, pulley, wedge, winch
● Screw invented by Archimedes by 3rd century

Archimedes
● Even though he was famous for inventing mechanical things, he saw it as “ignoble and vulgar” so
did not leave behind any treatises
○ Did not like inventions due to “necessity”
○ Pure math is more beautiful
● Hydrostatics
○ Studies fluid’s behavior -- in someone’s presentation
● Problem of the crown -- we did this in linear algebra
○ Hiero wanted a crown and gave the gold to make it to a craftsman, who returned a crown
of the same weight back
■ King wanted to know if he substitute equivalent weight of silver
○ Archimedes figured it out because he saw that the more his body sank into a tub, the
higher the water went -- Eureka
■ Calls solution “specific gravity”
■ Makes two masses same weight as crown, one silver one gold
■ Drops silver into very full bucket, certain amount of water drops out and he
figures out how much by refilling bucket to same spot
● Same thing with gold -- less water fell out
■ Now he knows gram per volume of silver -- density (specific gravity)
● Silver lower density, so you need more silver to equal weight in gold
■ Drops crown in and more water falls out than gold, so crown is not all gold
● Using levers and pulleys
○ Dragged massive ship with system of compound pulleys
○ Saw you can move a ton of weight if lever is put in the right spot
● War machines
○ Made scorpions (ballistas), claw (grab enemy ships), burning mirrors, catapults
○ Burning mirrors
■ Diocles made a treatise on these, not archimedes
 ● Screw
○ Cylinder and a helical surface on inside of cylinder
■ Screw rotated and bottom end scoops up water and it gets pushed up by the screw
■ First application: water-lifting devices
■ screw presses for oil and wine

People who wrote about mechanics because archimedes didn’t

● Ctesibius -- water clocks presentation
● Philo of Byzantium 200 BC
● Vitruvius 25 BC
● Hero of alexandria 60 CE (automata and war machines)

Philo of Byzantium
● 9 volumes on mechanics including
○ Manufacture of Cannons
○ Pneumatics -- air water and vacuums
○ Military weapons
○ Art of siege warfare
● Wrote about the “Method of the Engineers”
○ Uses example of size of “hole” in war machines to demonstrate trial and error of
engineering
■ “by “experimentally increasing and diminishing the perimeter of the hole”
■ Later engineers built off the work of previous
■ “Alexandrian craftsmen” were “heavily subsidized” by “ambitious kings”
● Supported by Ptolemies
○ Says “Everything cannot be accomplished by the theoretical methods of pure mechanics,
but that much is to be found by experiment”
■ Progress is not the result of one chance experiment -- reworking
○ Advocates for both theory and practice
■ Not simple trial and error, but methods of controlled (by theory) experiments
Hero
● Pneumatics and its automata
○ Designed for religious cults and without practical use
○ Clepsydra -- presentation
○ Hero’s Altar
■ When a fire is raised in altar, figures on the side offer libations
■ Uses pneumatics and mechanics
○ Automatic Temple
■ When fire is lit, doors to temple open and shut and when is extinguished
■ Temple and Altar use principle of heating air to expand it and the air pushes on
something
● Forced water out and into a bucket, which pulls rope down with extra
weight and rope pulls door open
● Tries to use language like Euclid and others to give ethos to mechanics
General Characteristics of mechanics in Greece
● Ingenuity: Many applications of limited number of mechanical principles
● Interest in those principles themselves and the theoretical side of mechanics
○ Still want to find theories behind actions -- possible response to Plato’s criticism
● Distinction between practical purposes and amusement

Problems
● Why did applications of mechanics not yield more useful results?
○ Failure to exploit steam power
■ Steam engine theoretically possible
● Still need to find cylinders and pistons fine enough so steam wont escape
■ Hero’s were very inefficient
○ Failure to exploit water power
■ Water wheels mentioned in 1st BC, but remains date only to 2nd CE
■ Lack of suitable fast streams in Greek regions
■ Usually just used rotary mill with animal power
● Water wheel much more expensive
○ Failure to exploit wind power
■ Only used it for sailing ships, not really mentioned otherwise
○ Failure to exploit enimal energy fully
■ Never devised any sort of harness that enabled horses to be used efficiently
● Used same one as oxen
■ Huge buildings do suggest that heavy transportation was possible
○ Slavery
■ As long as there were slaves, not really an incentive to adopt labor-saving
machines
● Slaves were costly tho, so they still want to decrease dependence
○
Conclusions about mechanics
● Automata relatively small
○ Difficult to transfer this force into bigger/more useful machines
● Conservative tendency in ancient technology
○ Once they found a usable thing, they stuck with it
○ Warfare was really the only place they tried to constantly advance
● Contempt for mechanical arts in elites -- plato and archimedes
● Land was what elite used wealth for, not business or industry
○ No incentive in industry development -- they made money off human labor
● Little attention paid to problems of mass productions