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{{Short description|Greek inventor and mathematician}}{{About|the inventor and mathematician|the lunar crater|Ctesibius (crater)|the beetle genus|Ctesibius (beetle)}}

factoids

File:ARAGO Francois Astronomie Populaire T1 page 0067 Fig16-17.jpg|thumb|Ctesibius' water clock, as visualized by the 17th-century French architect Claude PerraultClaude PerraultCtesibius or Ktesibios or Tesibius (; {{fl|285–222}} BCE) was a Greek inventor and mathematician in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt.Encyclopædia Britannica: Ctesibius. "Greek physicist and inventor, the first great figure of the ancient engineering tradition of Alexandria, Egypt." Very little is known of Ctesibius' life, but his inventions were well known in his lifetime. He was likely the first head of the Museum of Alexandria. He wrote the first treatises on the science of compressed air and its uses in pumps (and even in a kind of cannon). This, in combination with his work On pneumatics on the elasticity of air, 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. Ctesibius' most commonly known invention today is a pipe organ (hydraulis), a predecessor of the modern church organ.

Inventions

Ctesibius was the son of a barber, born {{circa|300}} BCE, probably{{snd}}but not certainly{{snd}}in Alexandria.ENCYCLOPEDIA, Hoffmann, James J., Neil Schlager, Associate editor: Josh Lauer, Ctesibius of Alexandria, 2001, 400–401,weblink Science and Its Times: Understanding the Social Significance of Scientific Discovery, 1 2000 BC to AD 699, Gale Group, He began his career as a barber, following his father. During this first career, he invented a counterweight-adjustable mirror. Another of his inventions was the hydraulis, a water organ that is considered the precursor of the modern pipe organ and the first keyboard instrument. He and his wife Thais were reputed to be highly-skilled players of the instrument.Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 4.174eBOOK, Leon, Vicki, Uppity Women of Ancient Times, Conari Press, 1995, 9781573240109, 82, He improved the water clock or clepsydra ('water thief'), which for more than 1,800 years was the most accurate clock ever constructed, until the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens' invention of the pendulum clock in 1656. Ctesibius described one of the first force pumps for producing a jet of water, or for lifting water from wells. 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.(File:Ctesibius's_water_clock,_3rd_century_BC,_Alexandria_(reconstruction).jpg|thumb|Hydraulic clock of Ctesibius, reconstruction at the Technological Museum of Thessaloniki)

Reputation

According to Diogenes Laërtius, Ctesibius was miserably poor. Laërtius details this by recounting the following concerning the philosopher Arcesilaus:{{blockquote|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."}}Ctesibius's work is chronicled by Vitruvius, Athenaeus, Pliny the Elder, 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.

Commemoration

• In 1976, the International Astronomical Union named the crater on the far side of the Moon Ctesibius.{{gpn|1344}}

References

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Further reading

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

{{Authority control}}{{Ancient Greek mathematics}}