Almost 2,000 years ago, a mathematician and engineer created machines that so impressed the public that his instructions have survived to this day. The details of Hero of Alexandria’s life are sufficiently vague that there is debate about his name, and the century he lived in, so accounts of his works need to be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, there seems little reason to doubt that he used an understanding of what we now call physics to create many works considered astonishing at the time, and that still look remarkably advanced today. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Hero, also known as Heron, is reputed to have developed elements of two technologies that went on to change the world: the steam engine, known a

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