Some Classic Dramatic Uses of Temperature-Dependent
Effects
This expansion of air on heating became widely known in classical times, and was used in various dramatic devices. For example, Hero of Alexandria describes a small temple where a fire on the altar causes the doors to open.
The altar is a large airtight box, with a pipe leading from it to another enclosed container filled with water. When the fire is set on top of the altar, the air in the box heats up and expands into a second container which is filled with water. This water is forced out through an overflow pipe into a bucket hung on a rope attached to the door hinges in such a way that as the bucket fills with water, it drops, turns the hinges, and opens the doors. The pipe into this bucket reaches almost to the bottom, so that when the altar fire goes out, the water is sucked back and the doors close again. (Presumably, once the fire is burning, the god behind the doors is ready to do business and the doors open…)
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he checked that the experiment was reproducible, and he established that the air’s expansion was in response to heat being applied to the sphere, and was independent of the source of the heat. <span>Some Classic Dramatic Uses of Temperature-Dependent Effects This expansion of air on heating became widely known in classical times, and was used in various dramatic devices. For example, Hero of Alexandria describes a small temple where a fire on the altar causes the doors to open. The altar is a large airtight box, with a pipe leading from it to another enclosed container filled with water. When the fire is set on top of the altar, the air in the box heats up and expands into a second container which is filled with water. This water is forced out through an overflow pipe into a bucket hung on a rope attached to the door hinges in such a way that as the bucket fills with water, it drops, turns the hinges, and opens the doors. The pipe into this bucket reaches almost to the bottom, so that when the altar fire goes out, the water is sucked back and the doors close again. (Presumably, once the fire is burning, the god behind the doors is ready to do business and the doors open…) Still, none of these ingenious devices is a thermometer. There was no attempt (at least none recorded) by Philo or his followers to make a quantitative measurement of how hot or cold th
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