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:
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)