History
The screw was one of the last of the simple machines to be invented. It first appeared in ancient Greece, and by the first century BCE was used in the form of the screw press and the Archimedes screw, but when it was invented is unknown. Greek philosopher Archytas of Tarrentum (428 - 347 BCE) was said by the Greeks to have invented the screw. The Greek philosopher Archimedes is credited with inventing the Archimedes' screw water pump around 234 BCE, although there is evidence it may have come from Egypt. Archimedes was first to study the screw as a machine, so he is sometimes considered the inventor of the screw. Greek philosophers defined the screw as one of the simple machines and could calculate its (ideal) mechanical advantage. For example, Heron of Alexandria (52 CE) listed the screw as one of the five mechanisms that could "set a load in motion", defined it as an inclined plane wrapped around a cylinder, and described its fabrication and use, including a tap for cutting female screw threads.
Screw fasteners began to be used in the 15th century, in clocks, after screw-cutting lathes were developed. The screw was apparently applied to drilling and moving materials (besides water) around this time also, when images of augers and drills began to appear in European paintings. The complete dynamic theory of simple machines, including the screw, was worked out by Italian scientist Galileo Galilei in 1600 in Le Meccaniche ("On Mechanics").
Read more about this topic: Screw (simple Machine)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)