Gresham Street Bucket Wheel

Castellum Divisorium at Pompeii

Archeological remains of this Roman water-lifting device were discovered at Gresham Street in downtown London in 2001. The machine lifts water with a chain of wooden buckets, connected together with iron links. The wheel is powered by a human-powered capstan, which turns the wheel shaft through right-angle gearing.

“The sciences do not try to explain; they hardly even try to interpret; they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which…describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work.”

~Johann Von Neumann

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