The Aeolipile

The Aeolipile was developed by the scientists of the library of Alexandria 2000 years ago, it was the first turbine. Unlike the Linear Mirror, the aeolipile never went in oblivion, but it always was considered an inefficient toy, not useful for any application.

Compared to nowadays turbines - invented by Parsons in 1844 - Aeolipiles have decisive advantages: they can be build at smaller sizes, which is important for providing energy in a decentral way. And they are more simple and do not need a heat up time. Therefore the aeolipile could give a strong boost to renewable energy technology.

In preparation of Physics&Art, we have studied the reason for the inefficiency of the classical eolipile (there is no literature to the best of our knowledge). We will try to overcome these inefficiencies in an international collaborative effort during the Physics&Art performance at the library of Trieste, continuing the work done at the library of Alexandria, and then interrupted for 2000 years.