The Amazing Steam Engines Of The First Century

The Physics arXiv Blog ^ | January 20, 2011 | kfc

[decimon]

Ask a person in the street who invented the steam engine and you're more than likely to hear the names of various Renaissance inventors such as Denis Papin or James Watt.

Less well known is the fact that steam engines were in use at least 2000 years ago. Our knowledge of these devices is largely the result of a text called Pneumatica written in the first century by the Greek mathematician, engineer and inventor Hero of Alexandria.

Today, Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy, talks us through some of these devices as they are described in an online translation of Hero's work.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Just run a junkyard engine off producer gas from wood. Like the Germans did in WWII.

[pabianice]

Gasoline will have to triple in price before a steam-powered generator would make financial sense. And let’s not get into making it run continuously.

[pabianice]

http://navlog.org/patent_1.html

[colorado tanker]

That diagram is all greek to me.

[SunkenCiv]