User:Alhazin/sandbox

Origins
Ancient history tells us that various societies kept a good sense of wonderment and marvels in their life. The Babylonians used mathematical and magic tricks to impress themselves. The Pharaoh magicians used tricks to persuade people to worship them. In Muslim times practical tricks were used to add new flavour and sophistication to life. Some of the most inventive trick devices were captured by three Arab brothers in the 9th century. Muhammad ibn Musa ibn Shakir, Ahmad ibn Musa ibn Shakir and al-Hasan ibn Musa ibn Shakir who were known as the Banu Musa Brothers. They were part of the famous ‘House of Wisdom’, the intellectual academy of Baghdad in the 9th century which you can read more about in the School chapter. As well as being great mathematicians and translators of Greek scientific treatises, they also invented fabulous trick devices which, some would say are a precursors to executive toys. The brothers fed their peers’ obsession by designing and making trick inventions and their ‘Book of Ingenious Devices’ lists over a hundred of them. This was the beginnings of mechanical technology.

Drinking Bull’ robot.
Like toys today, they had little practical function but these eleven hundred year old mechanisms displayed amazing craftsmanship and knowledge. Many of the mechanisms involved water, fake animals and sounds. For example, the drinking bull made a voice of contentment when it finished, as if its thirst had been satisfied. It did this using a series of filling chambers, floats, vacuums, and plugs.

How it works? The first thing to do was pour water from a tap into a large tank, that we will call compartment A, until it is filled. This tap was then closed off. Next the bowl, under the bull’s nose, was filled with water. The rising water level caused a float fitted in a tube coming out of the bowl to rise. This, in turn pulled a plug from the bottom of compartment A so the water drained into compartment B, a tank below. As compartment B filled, another float rose, pulling up plug B allowing water to flow between the two compartments. As B filled, air was pushed out, creating a vacuum in compartment A as no air was allowed to flow in from the outside. The water from the bowl was then drawn through the pipe into compartment A below, and it looked as though the bull had drunk it. When all the water in the bowl disappeared, the air was sucked through the pipe, making a noise which sounded like a contented and thirst-quenched bull. In the meantime, as water vanished from the bowl, the float dropped and closed a valve. The valve of compartment B was still open so the disappearing water from the bowl went into A, then B. Meanwhile the water from B was draining into a lower C compartment through a small hole. C also had its own hole to the outside so air could flow freely. Highly complex and mind-twisting, this must have kept people enthralled for hours.

Flask with Two Spouts.
Another of the Banu Musa brothers’ trick devices was a flask with two spouts. Coloured liquids were poured in each spout but when it was time to pour, the ‘wrong’ colour came out of the ‘wrong’ spout. Like the magician who can make orange juice come out of his elbow, the brothers had an even better, and simple, intricate mechanism up their sleeves. What they had done was to divide the jar in two vertically, with each section being totally separate from the other. Liquid came into the right side from the right funnel and into the left side by the left funnel and it couldn’t leave this way again. Instead another pipe had been inserted for the outflow. Of course, people observing couldn’t see any of this and although it was simple, it still had impact and amazed people. The brothers’ imagination for fun also seeped into designing fountains.