Several years
ago, I happened to visit the plantation of former President Thomas Jefferson in
Hero, a Greek engineer and mathematician from the 1st century AD is the oldest known - or documented - inventor of the automatic door. The working principle is simple and must have amazed those who witnessed how the temple doors would open ‘spontaneously’ after the prayers of the priest.
We keep forgetting the huge amount of knowledge that was circulating in antiquity. Most of the great minds performed in many fields. They were philosophers, astronomers, mathematicians, architects, engineers, geographers, poets, etc. (see: Greek philosophers Alexander knew).
What a wondrous world!
Hero was not a inventor,but a popularizer of some Hellenistic technology of III century BC (the age of Greek scientific and technological revolution). Hero seems have access to Hellenistics books and manuals. The myth that the Alexandria library was entirely destroyed in the Caesar Alexandrine war is precisely a myth (were burned some deposits of copies in the harbour zone; the great library was destroyed only in mid III century AD during the reconquest of Aurelianus). So Hero seems had contacts with the Alexandria library. Obviously at his time the scientific revolution was finished, destroyed by the roman violence and plunders between the fall of Syracuse (212 BC) and the beastly massacre of Corintus (145 BC...in the meantime the Roman king puppet Ptolemaeus big belly,chased away the Greek elites from Alexandria). Hero in I century BC vulgarized some Hellenistic discoveries for the rulers of the world...they were curiosities and toys..but even so there would have been enough for many technical applications. But the rulers how long evolved thanks to centuries of contacts with Greek culture were still too primitives and dull for take advantage of the opportunity. So the western civilization set off towards the stagnation. When the loots of the robberies finished,the decline and fall began.
ReplyDeleteI knew you would comment on my post, thank you.
DeleteIn any case, we have to be grateful to Hero for his writing and to those who helped his writing to reach us more than 2,000 years later. Sadly we ‘lost’ so much time in the evolution process of our civilization inherent to mankind. Nothing new under the sun, considering today’s destruction caused by the wars. We will never learn …
Absolutely. Hero helps lift the veil on lost Hellenistic technology. Without him we wouldn't know how advanced it was...but it's just the tip of the iceberg.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, the tip of the iceberg, as you so rightfully say!
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