Technology and Engineering in Ancient Greece

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Technology and Engineering in Ancient Greece

• By Karl Neu

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Table o Contents

• The Tunnel of Eupalinos
• How it Was Built
• Archimedes Screw
• More on Archimedes Screw
• Other tidbits about Archimedes
• Archimedes Approximation of Pi
• Canals
• Ctesibius of Alexandrea
• Ctesibius Water Organ
• Ctesibius Water Clock
• Artillery and War Machines
• Vitruvius' Scorpion
• Old School Biological Warfare

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The Tunnel of Eupalinos

• Many Pictures of Eupalinos' Tunnel
• Construction began around 550 BCE and was not
  completed to present day completion until the
  Romans.
• It is a 1.8 by 1.8 meter tunnel 1036 meters long.
• This tunnel was used as an aqueduct to transport
  water from a spring on the side of Mt. Kastro to
  the city if Samos.

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How it Was Built

• A study done on the Tunnel of Eupalinos
• Slaves from Lesbos were most likely used in the
  original 6 years of construction of the tunnel.
• There is a second tunnel that is much smaller
  below the upper tunnel. This tunnel was used as
  the aqueduct, for transporting water from the
  spring to the city.

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Archimedes Screw

• Created during the 3rd century BCE.
• Used the principal of and endless screw, a screw
  which is anchored so that it cannot move
  longitudinally. This allows the screw to remain
  stationary and the screw to move the medium, in
  this case water.
• The screw is contained in a cylinder such that
  the edge of the screw makes a tight seal up
  against the inside of the cylinder.

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More on Archimedes Screw

• Archimedes Screw was used to get water from water
  sources for things such as irrigation.
• It can also be applied to move light things such
  as ash, grain and sand.
• Archimedes screw was even used on ships to remove
  the water from the bilge.
• The larger screws were often powered by farm
  animals while the smaller ones were often powered
  by hand. An amazingly small amount of strength
  was needed to operate these.
• Animations and the mathematics behind Archimedes
  screw

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Other tidbits about Archimedes

• In the first book of On the sphere and cylinder
  Archimedes shows that the surface area of a
  sphere is four times that of a great circle. He
  shows that the volume of a sphere is two-thirds
  the volume of a circumscribed cylinder, and that
  the surface area of a sphere is two-thirds the
  surface area of a circumscribed cylinder
  including its bases.

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Archimedes Approximation of Pi

• Archimedes principle is his most famous theorem
  which gives the weight of a body immersed in a
  liquid.
• He was also able to approximate pi to say that it
  is 3 10/71 and 3 1/7. He calculated this by
  circumscribing and inscribing a circle with
  regular polygons having 96 sides.

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Canals

• This is where the Xerxes Canal was built.
• It was built around 480 BCE.
• It was built so that King Xerxes could safely get
  his troops to the Aegean in advance of the
  Persian invasion of Greece.
• Although there is little visible evidence that it
  existed, Herodotus gives a full account of its
  construction.
• This canal was about 100 feet wide at the
  surface, about 50 feet wide at the bottom and was
  45 feet deep. It could easily fit two triremes
  abreast.

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Ctesibius of Alexandrea

• Ctesibius lived from 285-222 BCE.
• During his lifetime he did a lot of work with
  pneumatics which has given him the title of
  Father of Pneumatics.
• His first invention was for his father who was a
  barber. He made a counter-weighted mirror so his
  father could adjust it depending on the height of
  the customer. The lead weight was inside a tube,
  and he noticed as it was moved, there was
  sometimes a whistling sound. This got him very
  interested in pneumatics and musical instruments.

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Ctesibius Water Organ

• Also called hydraulis.
• Bellows forced air into the inner chamber with
  the water.
• When a key was depressed, air was forced through
  a path to a certain pipe. Each pipe was a
  different length and/or diameter which changed
  the pitch.
• This organ was widely used by the Greeks, but
  disappeared until the 8th and 9th century when it
  reappeared in Europe.

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Ctesibius Water Clock

• Ctesibuis made many improvements on the water
  clock. He made it work somewhat like the modern
  toilet. When the water got to a certain level,
  it flushes allowing water to fill up again, and
  this is how time was kept.
• This clock worked surprisingly well for something
  of that time period.
• Ctesibius water clock was inspiration for many
  of todays clocks, as they run on the same
  principle.

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Artillery and War Machines

• Battering rams were frequently used to break down
  city walls. These were much more useful than
  catapults because the force of the blow was much
  greater and could be directed at the same place
  time after time.

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Vitruvius' Scorpion

• This is an ancient Greek crossbow.
• They worked on torsion, and were very efficient.
• They did not require a lot of force to cock, but
  were very destructive.

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Old School Biological Warfare

• Toxic honey, water poisoned with drugs, scorpion
  bombs, choking gases, conflagrations and
  incendiary weapons similar to modern napalm were
  widely used in historical battles.
• Greek Fire was a gelatin based substance that
  would be launched out of pumps. It was similar
  to a flamethrower. Putting water on it would
  just make it worse.
• Here is a cool article on this stuff.

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The End.