5 ancient inventions that were ahead of their time

1. Pigeon drone powered by steam

In 428 BC e. in Greece was born one of the most talented inventors, mathematicians and physicists of antiquity is Archytas of Tarentum. In general, he was a military leader-strategist, and studied science and philosophy in his spare time, but even with such a schedule he achieved outstanding achievements.

Archite studied, how sound propagates in a medium, and created the first known theory of acoustics in history - naive by today's standards, but still. He also invented a drawing, that is, the transfer of an image of a working mechanism using geometric shapes.

But the most famous invention of Archytas is a wooden flying dove.

The device was hollow and had two large wings in the middle and two smaller ones at the back. The latter resembled tail stabilizers. There was also a hole in the back of the dove connected to a bull bladder placed in the body.

The bird was planted backwards on a boiling cauldron and pumped with steam until it took off. chroniclers claimedthat the device could fly a distance equivalent to several hundred meters.

So Archytas invented the first ever winged mini-drone. However, since the mechanic still did not guess to attach the video camera to the steam pigeon, the practical use invention did not, and was quickly forgotten.

2. Automatic doors

Video fragment: Sebastian Hageneuer / Artefacts – Scientific Illustration & Archaeological Reconstruction / University of Cologne

In the 1st century A.D. e. mathematician and engineer Hero of Alexandria developed the first ever automatically opening doors. Well, not with a motion sensor, like in a supermarket near your house, but not bad either.

Mechanism have worked in the following way. In the early morning, the priest would enter the temple through the staff door and light the fire in the braziers. Under the influence of temperature, the water in the copper pots turned into steam, and the increased pressure pushed the liquid through pneumatic pipes next to the doors.

She filled the counterweight vessels, which actuated a system of cables and pulleys and gradually opened the doors. It could take several hours from starting a fire to getting a result.

Self-opening doors in the temple evoked mystical feelings in the believers who came there, forcing them to believe that higher powers were inviting them inside.

Posted this item in Roman temple next to the city gates of Alexandria - after all, the best should be given to the gods so that they are pleased and do not spoil the lives of mortals.

Heron described these automatic opening doors in his book Pneumatics. Other inventions mentioned there include the steam boiler, the wind wheel, the muscle-drawn water pump for extinguishing fires, and so on.

3. Vending machine

Another unit invented Heron and ahead of his time by a couple of millennia. It was also placed in one of the Roman temples. It was something like a paid dispenser of holy water - yes, the priests came up with the idea of ​​​​selling a specially blessed liquid even before distribution Christianity.

temple visitors threw a coin into the slot of the device, it fell onto the pallet inside. He leaned under the weight of the coin, opening the valve and pouring a little liquid into the substituted vessel. Then the coin would slide off the tilted tray and the door would slide back into place.

The more coins you throw, the more holy water you get. Fair deal, right?

This invention can be safely called the first vending machine in history.

4. seismoscope

Fantastic mechanisms that were ahead of their time were invented not only by ancient Greeks and the Romans, but also the ancient Chinese. Some of their inventions could be useful, others were just curious concepts.

One of them is the first ever seismoscope, introduced by a scholar named Zhang Heng to the imperial court in 132, during the Han Dynasty.

The operating principle of the device was such is: a hammer, sensitive to vibrations of the earth, dangled in a metal vessel. During an earthquake, he hit the wall in the direction where the epicenter was.

As a result, a ball fell out of the mouth of one of the eight dragons attached to the seismoscope. It fell into the mouths of the bronze frogs standing below with a loud ringing, and thus the observers could determine in which side of the world the cataclysm occurred.

The device caused delight at the court and received the name "Earthquake weather vane".

Despite its apparent simplicity, the inside of the machine was quite complex: it was necessary to create ingenious levers and cranks so that the pendulum in the vessel could move freely in eight directions.

In the annals "The Book of the Later Hans" recordedthat once Zhang's device worked, although no one felt the seismic tremors. And only a few days later a messenger arrived from the west, who said that an earthquake had occurred in Longxi (now Gansu Province).

5. Cart with navigation system

Nowadays, a car with a navigator does not surprise anyone. But when 2,000 years ago in the Three Kingdoms era, the Chinese inventor Ma Jun created for Emperor Mingdi, a chariot with a built-in compass was a real miracle.

Magnetic the inventor did not have a compass, so he had to somehow get out. On the roof of the chariot, he attached an arrow, which, with the help of a complex system of gears, received the ability to always point in one direction.

At the beginning of the journey, when the cardinal directions are precisely known, it was turned to the south. The chariot would then move off, and each time it turned, the mechanism would rotate the arrow so that it always pointed in the desired direction. Only mechanics, no magnetic compasses - their Chinese will start use only in the 11th century.

To create such an apparatus, Ma Jun had to invent a differential gear and a gear mechanism. According to the annals, navigating chariots applied up to 1300 and came in handy on long campaigns and reconnaissance expeditions.