3 ms·

Hero's door-opener doesn't need pipes and a bottle and a bucket: the expanding air could have moved the rope by filling a rubber bladder. Except the Greeks didn

Hero's door-opener doesn't need pipes and a bottle and a bucket: the expanding air could have moved the rope by filling a rubber bladder. Except the Greeks didn't have rubber. (Therefore if they had had rubber, we'd have no steam engines?) The noise-maker could similarly have sent air through its organ directly, I'm not sure what's wrong with that, it doesn't seem to use hydraulics to increase the rate of flow, maybe some evening-out occurs that improves the sound?

kragen 2y ago
they didn't have rubber bladders, but the reason rubber bladders are called rubber bladders is that, before the vulcanization of rubber was known to scientists, they used actual bladders, from slaughtered animals. but those are a bit more fragile and couldn't have pulled much of a rope without a bag or something i suspect the organ model is wrong. there are a lot of ways to use hydraulics to get a precise flow rate, oscillating flow, etc., that heron talks about
- maxwell 2y ago
  Ancient Europeans had the sulphur, just no rubber trees. Ancient Mesoamericans vulcanized rubber (e.g. to make the ōlli for Ollama) by extracting latex from the Panama rubber tree and mixing it with moonflower juice: https://news.mit.edu/1999/rubber-0714 https://news.mit.edu/1999/rubber-0714
  - card_zero 2y ago
    Those balls (which were solid rubber, very heavy, and deadly) are the only Aztec use of rubber we ever hear about. The other uses mentioned are more interesting: > they identified a number of ancient hollow rubber figurines, a band made from rubber that secured a stone axe head to its wooden handle and numerous small rubber balls. The 16th-century documents also mentioned that Mesoamerican people made rubber-soled sandals and rubber-tipped hammers and drumsticks. I mean, phrases like "ancient hollow rubber figurines" and "a stone axe head secured by a rubber band" are delightfully incongruous.
    - kragen 2y ago
      the balls predate the aztecs by many centuries too
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lupusreal 2y ago
I think you could also achieve this using a water-sealed steam gasometer instead of a bladder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_holder#Water-sealed_gas_holders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_holder#Water-sealed_gas_ho...

kragen 2y ago

they didn't have rubber bladders, but the reason rubber bladders are called rubber bladders is that, before the vulcanization of rubber was known to scientists, they used actual bladders, from slaughtered animals. but those are a bit more fragile and couldn't have pulled much of a rope without a bag or something i suspect the organ model is wrong. there are a lot of ways to use hydraulics to get a precise flow rate, oscillating flow, etc., that heron talks about

maxwell 2y ago
Ancient Europeans had the sulphur, just no rubber trees. Ancient Mesoamericans vulcanized rubber (e.g. to make the ōlli for Ollama) by extracting latex from the Panama rubber tree and mixing it with moonflower juice: https://news.mit.edu/1999/rubber-0714 https://news.mit.edu/1999/rubber-0714
- card_zero 2y ago
  Those balls (which were solid rubber, very heavy, and deadly) are the only Aztec use of rubber we ever hear about. The other uses mentioned are more interesting: > they identified a number of ancient hollow rubber figurines, a band made from rubber that secured a stone axe head to its wooden handle and numerous small rubber balls. The 16th-century documents also mentioned that Mesoamerican people made rubber-soled sandals and rubber-tipped hammers and drumsticks. I mean, phrases like "ancient hollow rubber figurines" and "a stone axe head secured by a rubber band" are delightfully incongruous.
  - kragen 2y ago
    the balls predate the aztecs by many centuries too

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lupusreal 2y ago

I think you could also achieve this using a water-sealed steam gasometer instead of a bladder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_holder#Water-sealed_gas_holders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_holder#Water-sealed_gas_ho...