This article is not about the great conqueror or destroyer, but about the man who significantly contributed to the development of civilization. He is the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes. His ingenious invention is the screw of Archimedes.
The great scientist lived and worked in times very distant, the year of his birth - 287 BC He made many discoveries. The basics of hydrostatics and the famous law of Archimedes, improvements in the leverage, chain hoist, worm gear, finally, Archimedes screw - all of this we owe to the great Greek. It is enough to recall his statement, which reached us through the dividing abyss of time: “Give me a fulcrum, and I will turn the whole world upside down.”
What is the famous screw of Archimedes? A spiral placed in a cylinder is what it is. During rotation, she captured the liquid and carried it along with her. The gaps between the edges of the spiral and the cylinder walls allowed the shaft to rotate freely. As a result, water poured out through the upper open end. Thus, by placing one end of the cylinder in water, and the other positioning higher at an angle and rotating the shaft, the liquid was fed upward. It was possible to rotate both the shaft itself with a spiral inside the cylinder, and the cylinder together with the shaft.
A similar Archimedean spiral was used to raise water during irrigation and to drain mines, ship holds, lowlands and wetlands. The efficiency of such a device turned out to be higher than that of the water-lifting wheel existing at that time. An important advantage was that in a similar way they lifted both pure liquid, and its mixture with the ground, suspension.
As already mentioned, the Archimedes screw was originally used to lift water from the lowlands, from the river upwards, to irrigated fields. Thanks to a similar system, fields were irrigated in Egypt, Greece, and other places. Subsequently, this method began to pump water from the mines. The inclined structure just fit into the system of mountain drifts. Thanks to the use of a water pumping system using a spiral, many previously flooded sections of the mines were available. Among Spanish miners, according to historians, a similar method of drainage was extremely popular.
With no less success, the Dutch acted by a similar method of drainage. They fenced a section of the sea with dams and then pumped water out of it. Thus, they increased their territory by conquering the land from the sea.
With the development of technology, ideas related to the Archimedes screw found new applications. There is practically no industry that would not use self-tapping screws. But they are based on the same principle.
In many other cases, this technical solution was equally used. Worm gear - its prototype was created by a great scientist. The helical mechanism can also be considered a development of the Syracuse idea. How many screw presses were subsequently created is impossible to imagine. For many centuries, humanity received oil and wine using such devices.
The auger is also a modified screw of Archimedes. It is used in a variety of fields, from a conventional meat grinder to transport engines. To overcome marshy places where it is impossible to use a wheel or a caterpillar, all-terrain vehicles with screw engines are used.
Auger drill is used both for creating wells in personal plots, and for wells in industry. And the ships move thanks to the propeller, which is part of the Archimedes spiral. At the heart of all this is the discovery of a brilliant Greek.
In this material, the invention of the Greek scientist from the city of Syracuse, the Archimedes screw, was examined, its practical application in the past and its use in modern technology are shown.