Hero's wind-powered organ
Órgano accionado por el viento de Herón
- Date
- c. 60 CE (discutido) · confidence low
- Place
- Alexandria, Egypt
- Credited to
- Hero of Alexandria
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
In the Pneumatica Hero describes an organ whose bellows are driven by a bladed wheel pushed by the wind. If the description is accurate it is the first known use of a wind-driven rotary machine.
Some historians (Drachmann) regard the passage as a later interpolation and not evidence of practical use; the Persian windmills are the first well-documented wind machines.
What it led to
- a conceptual precedent for wind energy
- interest in pneumatic machines in the Alexandrian tradition