Archimedes and the Water Screw
Re-create the invention that quenched the Egyptian desert.
WHILE STUDYING AT THE LIBRARY OF Alexandria, Archimedes, the great mathematician of Syracuse, invented the worm screw, a simple but effective device that provided Egypt with a better way to grow crops. By dipping one end of the machine into a river or stream and rotating its auger-like conveyor, Nile Delta farmers could irrigate large tracts of otherwise arid farmland.
The Archimedean screw was a technological breakthrough in the third century B.C. Historical records show the device was soon adapted ...
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