Since Hero: A Mechanic's History of the Age of Power

by Bruce Abbott

Overview

In the first century AD, a mathematician and tinkerer in Alexandria, Egypt named Hero constructed a toy that boiled water and used the steam to spin a spherical armature using angled jets; 1800 years later, William Avery of Herkimer, New York constructed and marketed a device that used Hero's jet-propelled armature to power foundries, grist mills, and lumber saws. This book, written by a mechanic, traces the many steps, missteps, dead ends, and false dawns leading from Hero to the modern age of internal combustion engines and nuclear plants, and sheds light on the roots of the technology that many of us take for granted, but which shaped and make possible the world that we know.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940046187243
Publisher:	Bruce Abbott
Publication date:	09/21/2014
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	336 KB

About the Author

I was born and raised in the little town of Eastbrook, in downeast Maine in 1952. We lived on a subsistence farm and raised chickens and pigs, grew a garden, cut firewood, and generally supported ourselves. My dad was a mechanic, and the first in the area to attend the Lincoln mechanics school in Boston before World War Two. I've been a mechanic for over 40 years; if it burns a petroleum product I have probably worked on it.