Ctesibius

Ctesibius' water clock, as visualized by the 17th-century French architect Claude Perrault

Ctesibius or Ktesibios or Tesibius (Greek: Κτησίβιος; fl. 285–222 BC) was a Greek inventor and mathematician in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt.^[1] He wrote the first treatises on the science of compressed air and its uses in pumps (and even a cannon). This, in combination with his work on the elasticity of air On pneumatics, earned him the title of "father of pneumatics." None of his written work has survived, including his Memorabilia, a compilation of his research that was cited by Athenaeus.

Inventions

Ctesibius was probably the first head of the Museum of Alexandria. Very little is known of his life but his inventions were well known. It is said (possibly by Diogenes Laertius) that his first career was as a barber. During his time as a barber, he invented a counterweight-adjustable mirror. His other inventions include the hydraulis, a water organ that is considered the precursor of the modern pipe organ, and improved the water clock or clepsydra ("water thief"). For more than 1,800 years the clepsydra was the most accurate clock ever constructed, until the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens detailed the use of pendulums to regulate clocks in the year 1656 AD, when he actually built a working prototype.

Ctesibius described one of the first force pumps for producing a jet of water, or for lifting water from wells, and examples have been found at various Roman sites, such as at Silchester in Britain. The principle of the siphon has also been attributed to him.

According to Diogenes Laertius, Ctesibius was miserably poor. Laertius details this by recounting the following concerning the philosopher Arcesilaus:

When he had gone to visit Ctesibius who was ill, seeing him in great distress from want, he secretly slipped his purse under his pillow; and when Ctesibius found it, "This," said he, "is the amusement of Arcesilaus."

Reputation

Ctesibius's work is chronicled by Vitruvius, Athenaeus, and Philo of Byzantium who repeatedly mention him, adding that the first mechanicians such as Ctesibius had the advantage of being under kings who loved fame and supported the arts. Proclus (the commentator on Euclid) and Hero of Alexandria (the last of the engineers of antiquity) also mention him.

References

Further reading

• Landels, J.G. (1978). Engineering in the ancient world. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03429-5. 
• Lloyd, G.E.R. (1973). Greek science after Aristotle. New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-04371-1. 
• Vitruvius (1914). The Ten Books on Architecture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.