When were windmills first used? Detailed answer

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When were windmills first used? Detailed answer

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When were windmills first used?

A windmill is a machine that does work using the energy of the wind. Most often, windmills are used for threshing grain or pumping water. A wind-driven wheel, called a wind wheel, consists of several precisely balanced (balanced) wings, or sails, that radiate in all directions from the axis of the shaft. When the wind blows on the wings, the wind wheel spins and turns the shaft. This rotating force is transmitted through the dozer gears to the parts of the machine that do the work.

The principle of operation of windmills has been known since antiquity, but only from the XNUMXth century did they begin to spread throughout Europe and found wide application. The earliest types of windmills, called axial or German mills, were mounted on a vertical pole around which it could be turned so that the wind wheel was facing the wind.

Tower mills, or Danish mills, had a completely different look, in which the base was fixed, and the wind wheel and shaft were mounted on a rotating tower. The power ranged from 2 to 8 horsepower for German-type mills and from 6 to 14 horsepower for Danish-type mills. Half of the power was lost in moving the mill itself, so these were not very efficient mechanisms. They were not widely used until the steam engine was invented in the XNUMXth century.

The exception was the Netherlands - there were about 8 thousand windmills there in the XNUMXth century. Small windmills for pumping water were very popular in the United States in the XNUMXth century. They were built for watering, household needs or for irrigation.

Author: Likum A.

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How big can solar prominences be?

Prominences are the most grandiose of all formations in the solar atmosphere. A typical prominence looks like a giant luminous arch formed by jets of plasma that is denser and less hot than the surrounding solar corona.

Quiet, active and eruptive prominences are distinguished according to the type of prominences, according to the speed and features of the movement of matter.

Calm prominences are characterized by slow movement and shape change during their existence - weeks and even months.

Active prominences are characterized by rather fast motions of matter flows from the prominence to the photosphere, from one prominence to another.

Eruptive ("soaring") prominences look like huge fountains erupting at a speed of hundreds of kilometers per second and rather quickly changing their shape; they do not last long - from several minutes to several hours.

With a thickness of 5-10 thousand kilometers, a prominence can have a height of tens of thousands of kilometers. Some eruptive prominences reach a height of 1,7 million kilometers above the surface of the Sun (a very impressive sight, given that the radius of our luminary is slightly less than 700 thousand kilometers).

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