Wind Power
Wind powered boats as sales were
added to augment rowing. Wind powered ancient grinding mills. Pictures of
Holland show vintage windmills everywhere.
Wind is now used to generate electricity when the wind blows.
Water Power
Water mills were also common for
grinding grain and other uses. Water power is still used to produce electricity
using water turbines at low cost per kwh.
Watermills are found on the downhill side of rivers and streams where
water is diverted to a trough to turn a wheel.
Mills
Mills are essentially wheels
turned to rotate a shaft. Early versions of Mills were powered by slaves and
animals walking and pushing the wheel spokes to rotate the shaft.
Mills were set up to use wind and
water power. Mills can be used to grind, hammer, crush, stamp, saw, pump water,
make paper, draw wire and roll material flat, saw stone and marble, crush
quartz to extract gold and open heavy gates.
The main shaft for a windmill is
typically vertical and enters the building from the top and extends to the
building below where the grain is ground, like the windmills you see in Holland
with the sails on top and the grinding house on the bottom.
The typical shaft for a watermill
is horizontal and enters the building from the side and requires a gear
mechanism to connect to a second shaft that is vertical.
Watermills
Watermills
were in use as early as 300 BC. Many were used to grind grain into flour and
some were used to hammer quarts to extract gold. Later mills were used to saw
lumber and make paper.
Windmills
appeared later with the first wind-powered device in 100 AD. Windmills were
used to grind grain and pump water. They were used world-wide to solve specific
problems and increase productivity. By 1300AD there were hundreds of windmills
in operation in Europe.
Ancient Discoveries
The Stone Age was
a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make
implements with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted
roughly 3.4 million years and ended between 8700 BCE and 2000 BCE with the
advent of metalworking.
The Bronze Age began in China
in 2400BC and began in Europe in 2300 BC. The discoveries made in metallurgy,
smelting and metal forming allowed the manufacture of metal tools.
The Copper
Age, was an era of transition between the stone tool-using
farmers of the Neolithic and the metal-obsessed civilizations of the
Bronze Age. The Copper Age was really a
phenomenon of the eastern Mediterranean regions, and occurred from roughly 3500
to 2300 BC
The Iron Age began about 2000
BC. Steel was produced from melting
wrought iron and caste iron about 400 BC. Steel became the favorite metal for
weapons and tools.
Gunpowder
Gunpowder was invented in China
in the 9th century and was used as a weapon in Europe in the 12th
century. It was used as a crude hand weapon in the 13th century and
the canon was developed in the 14th century. The Musket appeared in
the 15th century and continued to improve, until it was replaced in
1860 by the repeating rifle and repeating pistol.
Science
Thales
of Miletus (7th and 6th centuries BCE), dubbed "the Father of
Science" for refusing to accept various supernatural, religious or
mythological explanations for natural phenomena,
proclaimed that every event had a natural cause.
Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE), a student
of Plato, promoted the concept that
observation of physical phenomena could ultimately lead to the discovery of the
natural laws governing them.
Archimedes
(287–212 BCE) developed elaborate systems of pulleys to move large objects with
a minimum of effort.
Hipparchus (190–120
BCE), focusing on astronomy and mathematics, used sophisticated geometrical techniques
to map the
motion of the stars and planets, even
predicting the times that Solar
eclipses would happen.
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-
1519AD) the artist contributed to anatomy, botany, geology, cartography,
hydrodynamics, astronomy, alchemy, engineering, invention, bridges, hydraulics,
war machines, flight,
Thomas Savery
was the first person to invent a steam
pump for the purpose of pumping out water in 1698. He called it “water
by fire". The steam pump
patented by him worked by boiling water until it was completely converted into
vapor.
In 1738 Lewis Paul and John Wyatt of Birmingham patented
the Roller Spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin system, for drawing cotton to a more even thickness,
using two sets of rollers that travelled at different speeds.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party
Leader
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