02925cam a22003853u 450000100060000000300070000600500170001300600020003000700050003200800410003701000130007804000110009104100170010205000070011910000240012624000240015024500410017424600530021526400510026830000470031933600260036633700260039233800360041850000310045450801840048552015550066953400670222465300260229165300380231765300150235570000340237070000410240485600510244585600430249677400UtSlPG20260610134807.0mcr n260607r20251851utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d  a07041532  aUtSlPG 7aen2iso639-1 4aQC1 aHero, of Alexandria10aPneumatica. English14aThe pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria1 aInventions of the ancients :  Hero of Alexandria 1aSalt Lake City, UT :bProject Gutenberg,c2025  a1 online resource :bmultiple file formats  atextbtxt2rdacontent  acomputerbc2rdamedia  aonline resourcebcr2rdacarrier  aRelease date is 2025-12-04  aTim Lindell, A Marshall and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)  a"The pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria" by of Alexandria Hero is an ancient engineering treatise written in the Hellenistic period. It surveys the behavior of air and fluids and applies those principles to ingenious devices—siphons, pumps, fountains, automata, sound-making figures, and early steam-driven demonstrations—often designed for temples, spectacle, and practical use.

The opening of the treatise presents an editor’s and a translator’s prefaces explaining why a new translation was made, the uncertainties around the author’s date and originality (versus Ctesibius), the state of manuscripts, and earlier editions. The text then launches into a clear exposition on the nature of air, void, and compression, arguing from everyday experiments (inverted vessels, cupping glasses, and suction) that practical vacuums can be made and that air is elastic. From there it quickly moves into numbered propositions: varieties of siphons (including enclosed and constant-flow versions), tools for priming siphons, globes and jars that release or retain liquids on command, vessels mixing hot/cold water or wine/water in set ratios, sound devices (whistling birds, trumpets, temple-door effects), coin-activated and temple libation tricks, constant-level cups, and demonstrations using compressed air. It culminates in early hydraulic machinery, including a compressed-air water jet, a valve design, and the beginnings of a fire pump, showing how the theory is turned into repeatable mechanisms. (This is an automatically generated summary.)  pOriginally published:cLondon: Taylor Walton and Maberly, 1851  aInventions -- History  aDiscoveries in science -- History  aPneumatics1 aWoodcroft, Bennet,d1803-18791 aGreenwood, Joseph George,d1821-18944 uhttps://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.3901500640998440uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77400