Heron of Alexandria was born in 75 AD. He
is a Greek mathematician but his interests are in engineering and
mechanics. He has written at least 13 works on mathematics,
mechanics and physics. His most famous work today in math is Proposition 1.8 of his Metrica,
which is known as the Heron
Formula. He also invented the first steam turbine, called the
aeolipile. At that
time it was used as a toy. A hollow ball was supported on two
brackets on the lid of a basin of boiling water. One bracket was
hollow and conducted steam. The steam escaped from two bent pipes on
the top, therefore creating a force that made it spin around. The
movement of the ball was used to make puppets dance. Although it was
very simple, Hero's aeolipile illustrated the scientific principle for Sir
Isaac Newton's third law of motion which states that for every
action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Hero's steam engine
helped a great deal with the development of the jet engine.
Even though Hero invented many useful items and discovered many math
formulas, Mechanics
and Optics
was the only work that descended from him.
