How the water was forced to flow upward. Drawing, description

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How the water was forced to flow upward. Children's Science Lab

Children's Science Lab

Ancient Arabic manuscripts brought to us the story of the amazing creations of the ancient inventor Heron of Alexandria. One of them is a beautiful miracle bowl in the temple, from which a fountain flowed. There were no supply pipes visible anywhere, and no mechanical devices inside. Where did the water come from? Why did it rush upward?!

Even a modern person would be surprised. After all, this is contrary to the law of gravity!

But you could see the great-great-great-grandson of the Heron fountain at a recent exhibition of scientific and technical creativity of youth. Among its exhibits was a vessel very similar to an ancient bowl. It also spouted water. The vessel could be touched, picked up... But how and from where the fountain spouted remained a secret. Miracle?

- No, - answered the author of the toy Viktor Zhigunov. And he explained to us the principle of action on the simplest model.

Take a tube about 400 mm long, insert two dense rubber plugs into it, and pieces of a ballpoint pen into the plugs, as shown in Figure 1. Then turn the tube over and fill the space between the plugs with water. After returning everything to its original position, immerse the device in a bath filled with water, and be sure to vertically. And you will see how a trickle of water will hit from the top rod. Why? The solution is simple. The water in the bath presses on the air under the plugs, which, in turn, on the water that is filled between them, and pushes it out. Here is the explanation of Heron's secret!

How the water was forced to flow upward

You ask, what made the water gush when no force was applied to Heron's vessel and it was not immersed in water?

Let's build another model - a fountain-machine. Take multi-colored plastic cubes (many of you have them lying around). Connect them as shown in Figure 2 and secure to the wire frame. Use a hot nail to poke holes in the cubes. Insert rubber or plastic tubing braids removed from electrical wires into them. It is desirable that their inner diameter does not exceed 2-3 mm. Make sure that in the cubes some tubes almost touch the bottom, others almost touch the top. All connections must be tight.

Pick up a "bowl" from a suitable broken toy or cut it out of the shell of an old rubber ball, and the tip from a ballpoint pen.

The fountain is ready. Now it needs to be loaded. Pour the water little by little into the bowl. Water will gradually overflow into the lower left cube. After filling it, turn your device over - water will flow into the top cube. Turn over again and add water to the bowl. Repeat the operation again and again until all the top cubes are filled. Now the fountain will hit.

When it runs out, flip the device 180° - it will recharge and the whole thing will repeat.

The principle of operation of such a device is not difficult to understand. In this experiment, water works, raised in some cubes to a certain height relative to other levels.

Viktor Zhigunov was not alone in his attempts to build a working model of the Heron Fountain. In the US, inventor John Folkis worked on the same problem. Figure 3 shows the working model he developed. It is made of organic glass, so through the transparent walls you can see where and how the water flows.

In Figure 3a, the fountain is ready for operation. Under the influence of gravity, water from the upper compartment flows into the lower one. The air there is gradually compressed and begins to put pressure on the liquid in the middle compartment - after all, they communicate with each other. As a result, the liquid rises through the nozzle tube and begins to gush out of it (Figure 3b). This continues until the water level in the middle compartment drops to the mark when the water only touches the lower end of the tip (Figure 3c). Now, in order to put the device into action, it is necessary to "charge" again - to redistribute the water in the compartments. It is turned over by 180 °, and everything will repeat itself, only in reverse order (Figure 3d, e and f).

The American inventor made another curious toy on a similar principle, where he used a water wheel. Water (see Fig. 4), overflowing from the tube, causes it to rotate. To many who see this toy for the first time, it seems that they have a perpetual motion machine in front of them. But now it will not be difficult for you to explain its work.

Heron's fountain, Zhigunov's and Folkis's devices - are they capable of surprising us only with funny tricks? Viktor Zhigunov believes that such designs can have quite serious industrial applications. For example, using Heron's principle, it is possible to create high-performance continuous pumping units that can lift water to a height of several meters without consuming a gram of coal or gasoline, or a watt of electrical energy. How this can be done is clearly shown in Figure 5. A dam is installed across the river, the upper edge of which is slightly below the water level. Water, overflowing over the edge, falls on the rotor, assembled from several large barrels connected by tubes, as in one of our models, and rotates it.

But you can do without a dam at all if the same rotor, as shown in Figure 6, rotates on a shaft in a submerged state. A system of series-connected barrels will alternately take in either air or water and raise it. So the free energy of the river flow will be able to supply water for irrigation of gardens and orchards, feed irrigation systems, and be used for other industrial needs without intermediate converters.

Try to use the advice of an ancient craftsman and his followers - our contemporaries.

Author: V.Aleshkin

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