EARLY TECHNOLOGY Fire and Basic Machines

FIRE First form of fire came from…

Finally Someone figured out that with enough patience and perseverance you could start a fire by Rubbing...

That worked, but it was tedious so man began to look for a quicker way. He found Rocks

After the flint and stone fire, came the Burning glass The technology of the burning glass has been known since antiquity. Vases filled with water used to start fires were known in the ancient world Archimedes, the renowned mathematician, was said to have used a burning glass (or more likely a large number of angled hexagonal mirrors as a weapon in 212 BC, when Syracuse was besieged by Marcus Claudius Marcellus. The Roman fleet was supposedly incinerated, though eventually the city was taken and Archimedes was slain. Aristophanes mentions the burning lens in his play The Clouds (424 BC). ( ) Today’s techniques…

As man got smarter, he finally invented a much easier and more portable way to transport fire…

First Matches In a book called the Records of the Unworldly and the Strange written by Chinese author Tao Gu in about 950 stated: If there occurs an emergency at night it may take some time to make a light to light a lamp. But an ingenious man devised the system of impregnating little sticks of pinewood with sulfur and storing them ready for use. At the slightest touch of fire they burst into flame. One gets a little flame like an ear of corn. This marvellous thing was formerly called a "light-bringing slave", but afterwards when it became an article of commerce its name was changed to 'fire inch-stick'. (

Matches eventually led to lighters…

HANDMADE TOOLS Six simple machines Wedge The wedge is one of the very first inventions of humans. When early humans made scrapers, axes and knives from stone, they were making a wedge. The earliest known wedges made by people were made 2.6 million years ago. The wedge might be the most important invention in human history. Without wedges, we would not have been able to cut wood, hunt animals, or make clothing. A particular kind of wedge called the plow allowed human beings to farm the land. Lever Archimedes did not invent the lever, he gave an explanation of the principle involved in his work On the Equilibrium of Planes. Earlier descriptions of the lever are found in the Peripatetic school of the followers of Aristotle, and are sometimes attributed to Archytas. Inclined Plane The inclined plane was used by prehistoric peoples. Though they did not understand it as we do, they knew what could be accomplished with it. In this light, the inclined plane was not "invented" by anyone.

Screw The Pythagorean philosopher Archytas of Tarentum (5th century bc) is the alleged inventor of the screw, the exact date of its first appearance as a useful mechanical device is obscure. Though invention of the water screw is usually ascribed to Archimedes (3rd century bc), evidence exists of a similar device used for irrigation in Egypt at an earlier date. Wheel By the time it was invented, it was the Bronze Age — humans were already casting metal alloys, constructing canals and sailboats, and even designing complex musical instruments such as harps. The carpentry probably delayed the invention until 3500 B.C. or so, because it was only after about 4000 B.C. that cast copper chisels and gouges became common in the Near East." The invention of the wheel was so challenging that it probably happened only once, in one place. However, from that place, it seems to have spread so rapidly across Eurasia and the Middle East that experts cannot say for sure where it originated. Pulley Possibly by 1500 BC people in Mesopotamia used rope pulleys for hoisting water. Archimedes of Syracuse invented the first compound pulleys 287 BC BC.