On Jul 12, 3:54 pm, Jerry Kraus
yahoo.com> wrote:> On Jul 12, 1:44 pm, Jack Linthicum
earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>>> On Jul 12, 1:45 pm, Reddragonf66
hotmail.com> wrote:>
>>> On 12 jul, 17:13, Jack Linthicum
earthlink.net> wrote:>
>>>> On Jul 12, 11:09 am, David Johnston
block.net> wrote:>
>>>>> On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:49:36 -0700 (PDT), Jerry Kraus
>
>>>>>>On Jul 11, 12:41 pm, David Johnston
block.net> wrote:>>>>>>> On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:24:19 -0700 (PDT), Jerry Kraus
>
>>>>>>>
yahoo.com> wrote:>>>>>>>>On Jul 10, 8:25 am, jmfbahciv wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Jerry Kraus wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Jul 8, 6:18 am, jmfbahciv wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> Jerry Kraus wrote:
>
>>>>>>>>>>> You are completely insane. You insist that a nation's power
>>>>>>>>>>> infrastructure depend on something that you state won't work.
>
>>>>>>>>>> Not quite. I insist that a nation's power infrastructure depend on
>>>>>>>>>> something that will be extremely dangerous to develop.
>
>>>>>>>>> What makes you think the danger would go away? Congress passing
>>>>>>>>> a law that declares it not to be a danger. You are still insane.
>
>>>>>>>>> /BAH
>
>>>>>>>>Good question, actually. If you research the history of electricity,
>>>>>>>>or steam, or chemical energy, you will find that there were quite
>>>>>>>>extreme dangers involved in their development. One of the reasons
>>>>>>>>Hero of Alexander didn't further develop his steam engine was that he
>>>>>>>>was afraid of it. It achieved unheard of speeds and energy release in
>>>>>>>>his laboratory, and he was afraid of getting killed by it.
>
>>>>>>> There's a slight problem with that analysis. It's a total fantasy.
>>>>>>> Hero's steam engine did not and could generate "unheard of speeds and
>>>>>>> energy release". It was totally feeble. - Hide quoted text -
>
>>>>>>> - Show quoted text -
>
>>>>>>Depends on what account you read. Some say it was a small glass toy.
>>>>>>Some say it was a large bronze vessel filled with boiling water. The
>>>>>>latter design could certainly have gotten out of hand in terms of
>>>>>>speeds and energy generated.
>
>>>>> No, he could not have created the necessary airtight seal.
>
>
>>>> - Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht weergeven -
>
>>> intellectually
>>> dishonest.
>
>>> /BAH
>
>>> ggggg :^/ vewwy funny
>
>> Not dishonest, you seem to have screwed it up
>
>
>> Ctesibius
>> From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
>> Jump to: navigation, search
>> For the lunar crater, see Ctesibius (crater).
>
>> Ctesibius or Ktesibios or Tesibius (Greek Êôçóßâéïò) (fl. 285-222 BC)
>> was a Greek[1] or Egyptian[2] inventor and mathematician in
>> Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt. He wrote the first treatises on the
>> science of compressed air and its uses in pumps (and even a cannon).
>> This, in combination with his work on the elasticity of air On
>> pneumatics, earned him the title of "father of pneumatics." None of
>> his written work has survived, including his Memorabilia, a
>> compilation of his research that was cited by Athenaeus.
>> Contents
>> [hide]
>
>> * 1 Inventions
>> * 2 Reputation
>> * 3 References
>> * 4 External links
>
>> [edit] Inventions
>
>> Ctesibius was probably the first head of the Museum of Alexandria.
>> Very little is known of his life but his inventions were well known.
>> It is said (possibly by Diogenes Laertius) that his first career was
>> as a barber. During his time as a barber, he invented a clever
>> counterweight-adjustable mirror. His other inventions include the
>> hydraulis, a water organ that is considered the precursor of the
>> modern pipe organ, and an improved water clock called a clepsydra. The
>> clepsydra kept more accurate time than any clock invented until the
>> Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens detailed the use of a pendulum to
>> regulate a clock in the 17th century. He described the one of the
>> first force pumps for producing a jet of water, or for lifting water
>> from wells, and examples have been found at various Roman sites, such
>> as at Silchester in Britain. The principle of the siphon has also been
>> attributed to him.
>
>> According to Diogenes Laertius, Ctesibius was miserably poor. Laertius
>> details this by recounting the following concerning the philosopher
>> Arcesilaus:
>
>> "when he had gone to visit Ctesibius who was ill, seeing him
>> in great distress from want, he secretly slipped his purse under his
>> pillow; and when Ctesibius found it, 'This,' said he, 'is the
>> amusement of Arcesilaus.'" [1]
>
>> [edit] Reputation
>
>> Ctesibius's work is chronicled by Vitruvius, Athenaeus, and Philo of
>> Byzantium who repeatedly mentions him, adding that the first
>> mechanicians such as Ctesibius had the advantage of being under kings
>> who loved fame and supported the arts. Proclus (the commentator on
>> Euclid) and Hero of Alexandria (the last of the engineers of
>> antiquity) also mention him.
>
>> [edit] References
>
>> 1. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica "Greek physicist and inventor, the
>> first great figure of the ancient engineering tradition of Alexandria,
>> Egypt."
>> 2. ^ George Sarton (1959). A History of Science: Hellenistic
>> Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries, p.343-344. Harvard
>> University Press.
>
>> [edit] External links
>
>> * Ancient Greek Scientists: Ctesibius
>
>> [hide]
>> v * d * e
>> Greek mathematics
>> Mathematicians
>> Anaxagoras · Anthemius · Archytas · Aristaeus the Elder · Aristarchus
>> · Apollonius · Archimedes · Autolycus · Bion · Boethius · Bryson ·
>> Callippus · Carpus · Chrysippus · Cleomedes · Conon · Ctesibius ·
>> Democritus · Dicaearchus · Diocles · Diophantus · Dinostratus ·
>> Dionysodorus · Domninus · Eratosthenes · Eudemus · Euclid · Eudoxus ·
>> Eutocius · Geminus · Heron · Hipparchus · Hippasus · Hippias ·
>> Hippocrates · Hypatia · Hypsicles · Marinus · Menaechmus · Menelaus ·
>> Nicomachus · Nicomedes · Nicoteles · Oenopides · Pappus · Perseus ·
>> Philolaus · Philon · Porphyry · Posidonius · Proclus · Ptolemy ·
>> Pythagoras · Serenus · Simplicius · Sosigenes · Sporus · Thales ·
>> Theaetetus · Theano · Theodorus · Theodosius · Theon of Alexandria ·
>> Theon of Smyrna · Thymaridas · Xenocrates · Zeno of Elea · Zeno of
>> Sidon · Zenodorus
>> Treatises
>> Almagest · Archimedes Palimpsest · Arithmetica · Conics · Elements ·
>> On the Sizes and Distances (Aristarchus) · On Sizes and Distances
>> (Hipparchus) · On the Moving Sphere
>> Centers
>> Academy of Athens · Library of Alexandria · Cyrene
>> Influences
>> Babylonian mathematics · Egyptian mathematics
>> Influenced
>> European mathematics · Islamic mathematics · Indian mathematics
>> Tables
>> Timetable of Greek mathematicians- Hide quoted text -
>
>> - Show quoted text -
>
> Nice Jack. One of our problems, of course, is the destruction of
> Libraries such as the Library of Alexandria. With better
> documentation, the exact progress of science and technology would be
> much easier to determine. Paper and the science of printing in China,
> for example, give them much better records, much farther back. Did
> you know that the Chinese have census data for the entire nation
> documenting changes in population to the man, from 2,000 years ago?
>
> But back to my main point, it seems clear that progress in technology
> could be faster. And that risk aversion on the part of the average
> person, and professional scientists in particular, seems to be
> something of an obstacle to progress. Any way around this?
Problems arise, first there is some sort of unwritten (of course) rule
that says the most commonly copied item will disappear first, because
it is so common no one needs to keep their copy. Then the best system
for saving copies turns out to have a life short enough as to ensure
eventual loss (microfiche) and long enough so that the problem has
already lost much that should have been copied. There are major
projects afoot to find and store original copies of newspapers,
because they have been put onto microfiche so early and then
destroyed. Everybody who was anybody knew their Ctesibius, Philo and
Hero, so they got reduced to shortened generalities that were later
miscopied or simplified to the point of being wrong. The irony seems
to be that some of those documents survived until the 16th and 17th
Centuries as many "inventions" of this period share remarkable
similarities to those made in the Alexandrian period. My best example
is the differential gearing on the Antikythera machine was used to
translate synodic months into sideral months, the exact same use they
were put to in 16th Century astronomical clocks. Even the shape of
gear teeth, not an obvious item for transmittal, is one way in the
Alexandrian age and after the 16th Century, but elsewise (square
teeth) between.
