Talk:Hero of Alexandria

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The edit of 21:01 6 Nov 2005 removed the claim that Hero proved his formula, citing Funk and Wagnall. This is bizarre; Hero's proof is well known. As mentioned on Heron's formula, it appears in his Metrica. (This according to Heath, who is about as authoritative an individual as one can imagine on this matter, and, for that matter, who gives the proof in detail.) Accordingly I now restore that claim. --198.166.55.98 23:39, 23 January 2006 (UTC)


  • Hercules shoots arrow at hissing dragon when apple is lifted

I've moved this here from the Projects section as it doesn't seem to make any sense or have any context. If anyone can expand on it and tidy it up (assuming it refers to an actual project) then I guess it can be returned. --Myfanwy 17:57, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Not sure who originally wrote the sentence, but it is ambiguous. I believe this is an actualy project of Hero's - "Hercules" is just a little model of Hercules and the "hissing dragon" is a model of a dragon. It's just one of the little mechanical inventions of Hero's. FranksValli 20:56, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] History Channel

I just watched an episode of Ancient Marvels on the History Channel that largely dealt with Hero's works. The program showed a self-refilling vessel that would refill a basin with water to a certain level after water had been removed; however, the program did not say this was one of Hero's works. I am assuming someone saw the program and added the device incorrectly, so I am taking it out. The program also discussed the Hercules contraption mentioned above, I'll add something about that is more clear.--Bkwillwm 23:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is Heron Really Greek?

Wikipedia should be different and not like other encyclpedia that contradict themselves. How do we know heron was a greek? Alexandria was in Africa (Egypt) not Greece. It was ruled (or under the colony) of Greece as at that time. That does not make him Greek. USA was once colonized by Great Britain before the independence.That does not make americans British or all other countries colonized by britain, British. One error that has plagued many encyclopaedia today is the designation of a Greek nationality to some early philosophers that not much is known of. Wikipedia is not like those encyclopedia. How does it seem to read about hero of Alexandria(Egypt) and read that he is greek and then click on the alexandria link only to discover that Alexandria is actually in egypt? Avoid Contradiction. We have a clue to his nationality. That clue is his name. "heron of alexandria". In those days people were surnamed after there place of origin/birth. I am considering changing the greek nationality to egyptian nationality or at least removing the word "greek". io_anthony 20:37 Sep 23, 2006 (UTC)

EDIT Anonymous Greek has a question: If Heron of Alexandria was an Egyptian, why did he write in Greek, and not in Latin or better yet in Hieroglyphics?: Wikipedia Quote:

The city of Alexandria was named after its founder, Alexander the Great, and as the seat of the Ptolemaic rulers
of Egypt, quickly became one of the greatest cities of the Hellenistic world. End quote.

In conclusion, since Alexander the Great was a Macedonian, it is reasonable to say that ALEXANDRIA was part of Macedonia. in which case, Heron was a Macedonian and his works should have been in Macedonian! (A language invented in our 20th century. (Bulgaro-Serbo-Albanian, Slavic language). Plato, (a Greek?), said once : Ignorance is the root and stem of all evils. Works known to be of Hero's hand:

  *' Pneumatica', a description of machines working on air, steam or water pressure, including the hydraulis or water organ.[1]
   * Automata, a description of machines which enable wonders in temples by mechanical or pneumatical means (e.g. automatic opening or closing of temple doors, statues that pour wine, etc.). See Automata.
   * Mechanica, written for architects, containing means to lift heavy objects.
   * Metrica, a description of how to calculate surfaces and volumes of diverse objects.
   * On the Dioptra, a collection of methods to measure lengths. In this work the odometer is described, and also an apparatus which resembles a theodolite.
   * Belopoeica, a description of war machines.
   * Catoptrica, about the progression of light, reflection and the use of mirro

[edit] Lecture notes

It is also believed that Hero taught at the Museum in Alexandria because most of his writings appear as lecture notes for courses in mathematics, mechanics, physics and pneumatics.

Is this for real? As in, one of the main reasons we know about his stuff is the lecture notes students were making in this guy's classes? ManicParroT 19:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

No, "lecture notes" means notes that Hero would have made as notes for himself when delivering lectures.--Mathew5000 00:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

== How complete is the biblioigraphy? ==(bibliography in Greek)

The Eleventh Edition Encyclopaedia Britannica [1] lists some other works not currently mentioned in this Wikipedia article, unless I am misunderstanding something. It says: "The geometrical treatises which have survived (though not interpolated) in Greek are entitled respectively Definitiones, Geometria, Geodaesia, Stereometrica (i. and ii.), Mensurae, Liber Geoponicus, to which must now be added the Metrica recently discovered by R. Schöne in a MS. at Constantinople. These books, except the Definitiones, mostly consist of directions for obtaining, from given parts, the areas or volumes, and other parts, of plane or solid figures. A remarkable feature is the bare statement of a number of very close approximations to the square roots of numbers which are not complete squares." --Mathew5000 19:03, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can we add a link to a small invention of Heron of Alexandria?

When I was young, my brother made a long chain out of key chain loops where when you drop one and it looks like it drops down the chain. It is either called the Magic Chain or the Chain of Heron. I had trouble (as an adult) finding this on the web and it took months of going to the library and looking online to find it. Does the Wikipedia include small but very old inventions and how to build them? I finally found it (a couple of years ago) and saved the web pages.

Can we add this somehow? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by LarryAGrossman (talk • contribs) 17:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] History Channel part 2

I watched a fascinating show last night on the History Channel called "Machines of the Gods" which is a part of the "Ancient Discoveries" series. A good deal of the show was dedicated to Heron, specifically the many devices he invented that were used by the temples to help instill faith, awe and new members and such. It appears he made the very first weeping statue where the eyes of a statue/icon would bleed. I've looked at some of the links on this article and found a few devices he made for the temples but I'm mostly interested in the bleeding statue(s). Does anyone have a link or an idea where I could find out more on the subject? I'm planning to work some on the weeping statue article and this would be a great historical piece to add to it. Cheers! Mr Christopher 15:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name

Why is this article 'Hero' instead of 'Heron'? I know the normal standard (which I support) in to render Greeks in Latinisation, but in this case, 'Heron' is the standard form in English. The page on what Heron is best known for is called 'Heron's formula' and references him as 'Heron'. Has this been discussed before? The way, the truth, and the light 07:33, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Since it apparently hasn't been discussed before, I will propse the move. The way, the truth, and the light 12:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

With so little argumentation, it's difficult to assess this request. I do note, however, that "Hero of Alexandria" is about twice as common on the Internet as "Heron of Alexandria". It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. One might consider moving Heron's formula to "Hero's formula" if consistency is desired. --Stemonitis 13:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, there was no objection to it; I thought that constituted consensus. "Heron's formula" is twenty times as common as "Hero's formula"; I'd never seen anything but "Heron's formula". Since he is principally known for this, I feel it should dictate the preference. The way, the truth, and the light 14:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Stemonitis, did you remember to remove Wikipedia and its mirrors from your search? Because when I did it I got roughly equal results, and the same when I restricted it to English-only results. I didn't comment because I had no objection, and the ghits were roughly equal. Mak (talk) 17:00, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnicity vs Culture

I think the agendas on the ethnicity of Heron and other Alexandrians add abstraction and imprecision to the project. Hero and all Alexandrian mathematicians of the same school should be labeled as Greek mathematicians, linked to either Greek mathematics or ancient Greece. Those people belong to a school of Greek mathematics, they had Greek names, wrote in Greek and were considered Greek by the standards of their society. Just because some scholars have hypothesised some non-Greek origins it doesn't mean that we have to change all established scholarship on the topic and link to unrelated cultures and schools. The practice of labeling those scholars anything but Greek because of a possible distant non-Greek origin would be as absurd as to label Diocletian an Illyrian emperor instead of a Roman Emperor. I hope you understand how wrong and misleading it would be. How do terms like 'Alexandrian' or 'Egyptian' or 'Hellenistic' help a reader who wants to become familiar with Ptolemy and look up his works, or even the works of other mathematicians of the same school? They don't. Speculations about origins should be made on a separate section and not in the lead. The lead should stick to "Greek mathematicians", as they have been categorised by scholars of all eras. If there are no objections I'll replace the mainstream cultural group they belong to. "Ethnicity unknown" makes no argument because in the Hellenistic-Roman as well as the modern period, culture takes precedence over dubious ethnic identifiers and exonyms such as 'hellenistic'. Miskin 17:22, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you are forgetting one more important point: the Alexandrians were all citizens of the Roman province of Aegyptus (Egypt). That in itself would make their nationality Egyptian or Roman, regardless of ethnicity or culture. Calling them Greeks would be no better than referring to Americans as English people, just because they speak English. "Alexandrian" would be the most neutral term for them, as it doesn't imply anything about their ethnicity or culture. Jagged 85 21:04, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
However, I do agree with your suggestion that discussions on his origins should be in another section, rather than the lead section. Jagged 85 21:12, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I think that it is a very false logic to make comparisons with modern standards. There was nothing Egyptian about the Greek colonists who founded Alexandria, in fact Cleopatra (last Hellenistic ruler of Egypt) was the first of the Ptolemies who accepted to learn and understand the Egyptian language. Not all Alexandrians were born in the Roman province of Aegyptus, for some 300 years before Cleopatra they were born under the self-proclaimed Greek dynasty of the Ptolemies, so this makes their ethnicity Greek. But even under the Roman Empire, most Alexandrians did not have Roman citizenship. The Roman citizenship was awarded to all free-born men of the Roman Empire after Constitutio Antoniniana i.e. 3rd century AD. The majority of Alexandrians do not belong to that category so there's no need to debate on that. Last but not least, Alexandria was separated in quarters: the main quarter, known as the Greek quarter, and two other quarters, the Egyptian and Jewish one. Alexandrians belonged to the culture and ethnicity of their quarter. Those who wrote in Greek, lived in the Greek quarter and had a Greek ethnicity independently of their distant origin (with the exception of some Hellenized Jews). Those who wrote in Egyptian were equivalently considered Egyptians. So as you can see, plain "Alexandrian" does not suffice, as Alexandrians had different status and rights. Plus there was no specific "Alexandrian civilisation" so there's no reason to invent one. Alexandrian Greeks and their science belonged to the Greek culture of the Hellenistic period (a modern concept). If you want to draw a parallel you should look at the Roman Emperors. The emperors of the Illyrian dynasties are never considered anything but Roman emperors. Officially there was no such thing as "Egyptian ethnicity", there hasn't been an independent ancient Egypt since before Cyrus the Great. I suggest that the head links to the specific culture and/or official ethnicity, i.e. the article Greek mathematics or Greeks and that there's a separate section (say biography?) talking about the theories or rather assumptions on their actual ethnic origins. Miskin 16:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Hello Miskin,
I've found many problems with your edits, such as:
1. You sourced your sentence "Hero belonged to the Greek society of Alexandria" with five sources that mention him as Greek and not simply as belonging "to the Greek society of Alexandria".
2. You further removed all statements that explicitly called Heron Greek while keeping those statements that claim that Heron had Egyptian or Phoenician origin. You consequently removed any mention of the current prevailing theory that Heron was Greek.
3. You then added "his exact family tree was not recorded in antiquity", which doesn't explain anything at all and is a regression in quality from the previous statement "His ethnic background was not recorded in ancient times".
4. Your alterations have made this article less coherent in structure and in language than previous versions.
It is for these reasons that I have reverted your edits. selfwormTalk) 00:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry to see that you're failing to see my point. That hero was considered Greek by everyone in his time and by the vast majority of modern scholars is something factual. However, I strongly contest that a neutral article should not put so much focus on racial/ethnic labels. Hero was regarded Greek by his contemporaries, by culture and by citizenship. Whether his ancestors were 100% immigrants from Greece that we can never know, and therefore ignore. It's out of order to say that he may have been Egyptian or Phoenician because one scholar has noticed Semitic and Egyptian influences in his work. What you call coherent structure and language seems to me like plain revisionist ranting and a violation of WP:UNDUE. I think editors here should take a look at WP:BIO to find out for themselves how a good biography is structured. Miskin 17:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Boyer Quote

This topic deals with the following quote from Boyer's A History of Mathematics:

Boyer (1991). "Greek Trigonometry and Mensuration", , 171-172. “At least from the days of Alexander the Great to the close of the classical world, there undoubtedly was much intercommunication between Greece and Mesopotamia, and it seems to be clear that the Babylonian arithmetic and algebraic geometry continued to exert considerable influence in the Hellenistic world. This aspect of mathematics, for example, appears so strongly in Heron of Alexandria (fl. ca. A.D. 100) that Heron once was thought to be Egyptian or Phoenician rather than Greek. Now it is thought that Heron portrays a type of mathematics that had long been present in Greece but does not find a representative among the great figures - except perhaps as betrayed by Ptolemy in the Tetrabiblos.” 

Firstly, Boyer mentions that "Heron once was thought to be Egyptian or Phoenician rather than Greek." This statement clearly means that Heron had had at one point in the past though to have been an Egyptian or a Phoenician but that that identification is at present generally rejected by historians. The "rather than Greek" part of the statement implies that the Heron's current identification is generally accepted by historians to be Greek. Now, Boyer goes on to explain that "Now it is thought that Heron portrays a type of mathematics that had long been present in Greece but does not find a representative among the great figures". This statement means that it is now generally accepted by historians that Heron was Greek.

Jagged85's statement in his edit history says that "Boyer didn't explicitly claim most reject it" (by "it" it is meant Heron's Egyptian or Phoenician identification). He then proceeded to change the word "most" to "many". Now, although Boyer did not explicitly state that most reject the identification, he did quite implicitly state that it is currently generally accepted that Heron was a Greek. Furthermore, I would also like to note that Boyer didn't explicitly claim many reject it, although he did implicitly state that. And so I would have to reject Jagged85's replacement of the word "most" with the word "many".

For the reasons just given in this post, I will change the article to state that it is currently generally accepted by historians that Heron was Greek. The new sentence will read "The historian Boyer explains that Hero's identification as an Egyptian or a Phoenician was largely due to the strong Babylonian influence on his work and that it is currently generally accepted by historians that Heron was a Greek,[9] although this identification is not accepted by all historians." selfwormTalk) 22:40, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation and for re-wording that part. The current wording of the section looks a bit more balanced now. Jagged 85 05:28, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
I too am happy that we have balanced the article and reached an agreement. Take care. selfwormTalk) 05:40, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Selfworm this is exactly the kind of polemics that I was trying to avoid. It's clear to me that those revisionist ethnic labels are based on dubious assumptions on racial origins, and do not reflect the mainstream modern nor ancient cultural perception of Hero. For that reason I changed "Alexandrian from Alexandria" to "Greek mathematician" with a link to Greek mathematics (the school of mathematics in which Hero is unarguably categorised). This does not aim to imply anything on his racial ancestry, but in any case as you said it earlier, him being a Greek is the prominent view. Hence this formulation abides by the WP:UNDUE section of NPOV. Secondly I removed the part which says "although this identification is not accepted by all historians" . In simple propositional logic the statement "most people think" is equivalent to "not all people think". Repeating it strikes like weasel wording. Miskin 17:22, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] citizenship

One thing that would help us resolve the disputes about the lead in the biography of Alexandrian Greek scholars is that question of citizenship/nationality of Alexandrians. As you probably know Alexandria was the capital of self-proclaimed Greek state of Ptolemaic Egypt, and was founded by Greek colonists from numerous Greek cities (unlike archaic colonists who came all from one city). However, Alexandria did have a Jewish and an Egyptian district. Citizens of Greek, Jewish and Egyptian citizenship had different legal rights and cultural traits (including language). Therefore all Greek-speaking people like Heron who were born prior to 30 AD (Roman conquest of Egypt) had a Greek citizenship/nationality. Similarly during the centuries of Roman Egypt, the Greek-speaking Alexandrians continued to have a Greek nationality. It was only after Constitutio Antoniniana that all citizens of the empire acquired a Roman citizenship. The status of nationality/citizenship in Roman Alexandria is studied extensively in the context of its Jewish citizenry which would often apply for Greek citizenship. For example the textbook "The Jews Under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian: A Study in Political Relations" explicitly mentions that "it is beyond dispute that some individual Jews in Alexandria obtained Greek citizenship", and that "in his letter written in late 41 (AD), Claudius speaks of the Jews as living in a city "not their own" and contrasts the Jews and Alexandrians in such a decisive way as to put it beyond doubt that only the Greeks were technically Alexandrians". Also the textbook "Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict" goes on to say that "Alexandrian citizenship appears to have been a desirable indicator of status even after Constitutio Antoniniana granted Roman citizenship to all of the empire's free inhabitants in 212 AD and that "Caracalla himself drew a distinction between true Alexandrians and Egyptians who had migrated to the city" I think this answers the question about the official citizenship of the Greek mathematicians of Alexandria such as Hero and Ptolemy. I also hope that this will help with some editors' anachronistic perception of ancient Alexandrian society. Greek-speaking Alexandrians were the ancestors of Greek colonists and apparently there were strong cultural barriers between the Greek Alexandrians and the non-Greeks residing in the city. Ancient Greek colonisation should not be confused with the context of modern colonisation in which the colonists assimilated the local elements and made them speak their language. Therefore terms such as Greeks, Jews and Egyptians have a clear political, ethnic and cultural significance in that ancient context. Miskin 18:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I've kept the lead paragraph as "Alexandrian", which is by far the most neutral term. It doesn't imply anything at all about ethnic or racial or cultural or national origins. All discussions regarding his background is already explained in the Background section. There is no need to make any assertions in the lead paragraph. Also, Egypt was conquered in 30 BC, long before Hero's birth, not in 30 AD. Jagged 85 04:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't see how can an editor force an allegedly neutral term on something which isn't a controversial topic. As another editor pointed out there already is a consensus and a prevalent view in the academic sources. You're free to include fringe views and alternative theories in a different section, but you don't have the right to breach WP:UNDUE and push minority POV in the lead. The existence of "Greek" vs "Jewish" vs "Egyptian" ethnicities in Hellenistic and Roman Alexandria has been explained to you, therefore the date of Hero's birth doesn't change the fact that he was of Greek citizenship. I made a personal effort to explain to you why 'Alexandrian' is an ambiguous term but you don't seem to care so much. Miskin 09:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
You would be right if it was for tiny minority views (like the Phoenician theory), but a possible Egyptian identity is not a tiny minority view by any means, but is certainly a significant view with prominent adherents including Victor Katz and George Sarton. As far as I know, there is no rule against significant minority views being mentioned in the lead section. I think it would be better to at least mention both views, as long as it is made clear which view is the majority and which view is the significant minority. Jagged 85 11:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)