Part 4.  The Secret Sound of Water.

Last ‘episode’ we started in the great city of Alexandria, Egypt. As you probably know at the time Alexandria was the capital of industry and learning in the world, this was mainly due to the ‘Musaeum’ the University of Alexandria that included the famous library of Alexandria. It attracted the learned from all over the known world. It was the where the greatest minds went to exchange ideas.

I didn’t mention last installment but our previous star Ktesibios, although financially destitute, likely ended his career as the head of the university.

Another lecturer of the university although some 300 years later (c.10-70 AD) was a fellow called Hero (or Heron).
A (suspected) native of Alexandria, Hero was a Greek mathematician and an engineer, much of his surviving writing appear as lecture notes for courses such as mathematics, physics, mechanics and pneumatics.

Hero is known for his work on the measurement of geometric figures, and ‘Herons Law’ a formula for finding the area of a triangle has been ascribed to him.

We will gloss over his many inventions here, so if you strike anything missing please note this is meant as an incomplete summary only.

He devised a gear system that could lift 1000kg with just 5kg. He also invented a variable ratio friction disc that has since been to used create a motor vehicle with a semi automatic transmission!

From a sound perspective his work on pneumatics was very important, he saw air as being a substance that could be expanded and compressed. He even surmised that the air was comprised of minute particles, this was 1,500 years ahead of his time.

He became known as Hero Of Alexandria, he is considered the greatest experimenter of the whole of Antiquity.

Hero was fascinated by ‘novelties and tricks’ and unlike poor Ktesibios he almost certainly was a rich man thanks to the priests of many of the biggest temples in Alexandria and further afield.

Alexandria and most of the Roman Empire was experiencing a rapid growth of a new strange religion called Christianity, this forced the priests from the traditional temples to compete to get the peoples attention. It was already common practice for the priests to employ ‘special effects’ such as using dehydrated bark and feces that would spark, create coloured smoke and make crackling and sizzling noises when thrown into the sacrificial fire.

Unfortunately such everyday miracles were old hat, something new was called for, that something new were the fantastical devices of Hero.

Hero’s inventions employed mechanics physics and pneumatics and were often based on an input (usually to do with sacrificial fires) that would through the wonders of steam-generated pneumatics created miracles.

They included;

The worlds first Automatic Doors (huge temple doors would open Automatically after the sacrificial fire was lit!)

Dancing Automatons at the temple of thebes that would dance “come alive and dance in a circle once a sacrificial firre was lit.

The sound of thunder which was produced by the mechanically-timed dropping of metal balls onto a hidden drum.

The first Vending machine for the temples, this dispensed a measured dose of holy water after a coin was deposited through a slot in the top! (this soon after fell into disuse and was not invented again until the 19^th Centaury.)

Heron’s Aeolipile (Wind or Steam ball),

I must also mention that he was the inventor of the Steam engine. Although it was created as a Child’s novelty toy, It was a rotary engine that consisted of a spherical ball with water inside, suspended on a frame that would have a fire lit underneath, as the water turned into steam it would escape through two angles openings on the side of the sphere causing it to spin.

It seems that hero was not only a Scientist and inventor but also a showman and musician, and it is for this work that we include him in our series.
He seemed to delight in creating ‘contrivinces’ that seemed to operate automatically or magically.

His understanding of the simple physics of displacement of air led him to create many novelties such as doors that when opened would sound a trumpet!

The sound of a trumpet may be produced on the opening of the doors of a temple.

He also created fountains that would have statues of birds start to sing as water was poured in to the fountain. One Included four song birds that would sing until falling silent as an Owl turned to stare at them.

Birds made to sing, and be silent alternately by flowing Water.

Notes produced from several Birds in succession, by a Stream of Water.

A Trumpet, in the hands of an Automaton, sounded by compressed Air.

Hero, like Ktesibios delighted in playing with how people experienced sound and through his novelties changed the way people thought of sound, when confronted by Hero’s novelties people could no longer take the sounds they heard for granted.
Where those bird statues actually singing?
How does that automaton play the trumpet?
Are the gods signaling the doors opening with a trumpet?

Next episode where going discover the worlds first programmable devices, harness wind power and the three brothers that were very wise indeed!

Click here for part 5.

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CLICK HERE for the INDEX of The History Of Electronic Music