The Ancient EngineersSouvenir Press, 1970 - 408 páginas From the dawn of history to the rise of the scientific method in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, invention and technology advanced with painful slowness. The reason was not that men were stupid during those thousands of years—it was the fact that most people were simply too busy trying to keep alive. The imagination and daring that leisure and security could divert to other ends were limited to a tiny group. It is about these brave men—whose genius enabled the Egyptians to build their pyramids, the Phoenicians to cross stormy seas, the Romans to erect magnificent public buildings—that this carefully researched and fascinatingly written account of the advance of early technology has been written. Mr. de Camp describes the methods used by early irrigators, architects, and military engineers to build and maintain structures to serve their rulers' wants. He tells, for example, how the Pharaohs erected obelisks and pyramids, how Nebuchadnezzar fortified Babylon, how Dionysios' ordnance department invented the catapult, how the Chinese built the Great Wall, and how the Romans fashioned their roads, baths, sewers, and aqueducts. He recounts many intriguing anecdotes: an Assyrian king putting up no-parking signs in Nineveh; Plato inventing a water clock with an alarm to signal the start of his classes; Heron of Alexandria designing a coin-operated holy-water fountain; a Chinese emperor composing a poem to be inscribed on a clock invented by one of his civil servants. The Ancient Engineerswill delight students of technology and invention for its accurate portrayal of the foundations of modern engineering as well as lovers of history for its penetrating look at the material background of civilization and its unusual explanations of the world's social evolution. |
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Página 13
... story of civilization is , in a sense , the story of engineering - that long and arduous struggle to make the forces of nature work for man's good . The story of engineering , pieced together from dusty manuscripts and crumbling relics ...
... story of civilization is , in a sense , the story of engineering - that long and arduous struggle to make the forces of nature work for man's good . The story of engineering , pieced together from dusty manuscripts and crumbling relics ...
Página 148
... story belongs with a group of legends about the mysterious powers of magnetism , along with the tale of the Magnetic Mountain . The latter started with the Egyptian geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus ( + II ) . Ptol- emaeus stated that in ...
... story belongs with a group of legends about the mysterious powers of magnetism , along with the tale of the Magnetic Mountain . The latter started with the Egyptian geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus ( + II ) . Ptol- emaeus stated that in ...
Página 163
... story of Hel- lenistic engineering . It is not that Hellenistic engineering really stopped , albeit it produced no more such towering figures . Instead , it was ab- sorbed into the story of Roman engineering , just as the Hellenistic ...
... story of Hel- lenistic engineering . It is not that Hellenistic engineering really stopped , albeit it produced no more such towering figures . Instead , it was ab- sorbed into the story of Roman engineering , just as the Hellenistic ...
Contenido
Three The Mesopotamian Engineers | 53 |
Four The Greek Engineers | 86 |
Five The Hellenistic Engineers | 114 |
Derechos de autor | |
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Términos y frases comunes
Agrippa Alexandria ancient aqueducts Arabic arch Archimedes architect Aristotle armor army Assyrian Athens Babylon became began brick bridge bronze builders building built Byzantine called canal castle catapult centuries China Chinese civilization classical columns conquered Demetrios dome early Egypt Egyptian emperor Empire engineering Europe feet fire Frontinus galleys gear Greek Hadrian harbor Hellenistic Hence Herodotos Heron Heron of Alexandria High Middle Ages horse houses Imhotep India invention iron irrigation kings Ktesibios Lake land later Leonardo machine mechanical medieval Mediterranean Mesopotamia Mesopotamian Middle Ages miles mill modern Mongols mounted Muslim oars palaces Persian Philon Philon of Byzantium Phoenicians piers pipes Polybios probably Ptolemaios pyramid river roads Roman Rome roof rowers sail Sennacherib shaft ships side siege statue stone structure temple took tower Trajan treadwheel tunnel turned vault vessel Vitruvius wall water clock water wheel wind wooden