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Hero of Alexandria

Hero of Alexandria

c. 62 CE · Alexandria

Hero of Alexandria (active c. 62 CE) was a Greek mathematician and engineer, one of the great experimenters of antiquity. He wrote on mechanics, pneumatics, and surveying, and is famous for describing ingenious devices, including a simple steam-powered spinning sphere and various automata, as well as a formula for the area of a triangle that bears his name. His works are a key source for ancient applied science.

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Did you know?

  • A working steam device ran in Roman Egypt — about 1,650 years too early

    In the first century CE, Hero of Alexandria described the aeolipile: a sealed vessel of boiling water whose escaping steam spun a metal sphere on angled jets — a genuine steam-driven device. It remained a curiosity; steam power would not turn the wheels of industry until Thomas Newcomen's engine of 1712 CE, roughly 1,650 years later.

    How we know

    Hero of Alexandria c. 27–67 CE (floruit fixed by the eclipse of 13 March 62 CE); aeolipile described c. 62 CE. Newcomen's atmospheric engine 1712 CE → 1,650 yrs; Watt 1769 → 1,707 yrs.

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AlexandriaEgypt

What they did here

Worked at Alexandria, as his name records. His date rests mainly on an eclipse he describes in the Dioptra, usually identified with that of 13 March 62 CE; scholars place him in the 1st century CE.

About Alexandria

Alexandria is the main Mediterranean port of northern Egypt and the country's second city. Founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE, it became the capital of the Ptolemies, whose Museum and Great Library made it the leading centre of Hellenistic learning. It also held one of the largest Jewish communities of antiquity, where the Greek Bible translation known as the Septuagint was produced and Philo wrote. Church tradition traces its patriarchate to Mark the Evangelist, and its catechetical school was led by Clement and Origen. Arab forces under Amr ibn al-As took the city in 641, and it remained a commercial and scholarly hub of the Islamic world; the Sufi master Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari was born there.

In Alexandria at the same time

Plutarch

Across the traditions, in Alexandria at the same time

See other sages who lived in Alexandria→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Hero of Alexandria’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

In the same tradition

Plutarch

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Hero of Alexandria’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(10)