Beautiful antique Heron’s Fountain apparatus

Craft & Design Science

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MZ_Mechanics-Badge.gifHeron’s Fountain, aka Hero’s Fountain (Wikipedia), is named for Hero of Alexandria, a 1st-century Greek mathematician and physicist who described it in his Pneumatica. It is a kind of hydraulic novelty, in which the action of falling water causes a stream of water to spurt up higher than its source, which is counterintuitive for many. This beautiful example dates from the late 1700s and is described in detail in the online gallery of the Museo Galileo in Florence.

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4 thoughts on “Beautiful antique Heron’s Fountain apparatus

  1. Shadyman says:

    That’s just begging for a Re-Make.

    1. unigamer says:

      definitely ripe for a remake! Thanks for posting this Make.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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