GP HERON will be the name for the GP Spheroid 22/23 atomizer to honour the Heron of Alexandria.
Hero (or Heron) of Alexandria (c. AD 10–70) was an ancient Hellene mathematician and engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria, Roman Egypt. He is considered the greatest experimenter of antiquity and his work is representative of the Hellenistic scientific tradition.
He's best known for what we call Hero's turbine -- a steam-driven whirligig that worked a little like a modern jet engine. He did mechanics, astronomy, and math. It is almost certain that Heron taught at the Musaeum which included the famous Library of Alexandria, because most of his writings appear as lecture notes for courses in mathematics, mechanics, physics and pneumatics. Although the field was not formalised until the 20th century, it is thought that the work of Hero, his automated devices in particular, represents some of the first formal research into cybernetics.
You see, Hero invented feedback control devices. His self-filling wine bowl, for example, had a hidden float valve that automatically sensed the level of wine in a bowl. When guests ladled out wine, the bowl mysteriously refilled itself.
That's called a closed feedback loop. Egyptian inventors had been making gadgets like that for 300 years before Heron. They'd made feedback-controlled water-clocks and lamp-fillers.
By the time Heron lived, 2000 years ago, Rome had annexed Egypt, and intellectual freedom gave way to imperial authority. Heron was the end of an inventive age. Not 'til the 1600s was another feedback device invented. Feedback meant letting go of control -- letting a machine make its own decisions. Authoritarian minds don't like that.
Heron had set up a do-loop for what we call an iterative solution. The same person who worked with feedback control loops now gives us a wonderful computer do-loop. In either case we start a process and then let it pass out of our hands.
Heron's story has a moral: we have no freedom without letting go of control.
Heron ... was the last breath of a Golden Age in North Africa. It'd be 1600 years before math, mechanics, and human affairs would catch up with that fragile inventive freedom we sell so easily for security -- that we sell to satisfy our need to stay in control.
Sources:
Hero of Alexandria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
No. 1038: Hero of Alexandria
Heron of Alexandria - Ancient Machines
Vapourart uses the symbol of aeolipile as our trademark insignia from the beginning, because we are great admirers of this unique Hellene scientist.
AUGUST 2013
GP Spheroid 22/23 mm project began in Athens.
DECEMBER 2013
Production starts for GP Heron. Capacity is 3,3 ml. A conversion ring will permit GP Heronr to be used with GP PAPS X and GP PAPS v1, v2, v2.1, v2.5 mods via an X converter ring with threading M20x1 mm and M21x1 mm. It has also an AFC ring. Heron is made from EU certified 316 SS. A special designed drip tip is included.
The pictures above show the GP Heron attached to a GP PAPS LUX mod.
JANUARY 2014
The new trend in the vaping community is using cotton with micro coils instead of silica and although the units had already been produced, we postponed the release till we apply on Heron, a last moment's crazy idea, which is a little extra for the cotton lovers - a topper that works as a reducer and cotton feeder at the same time.
Next week we shall open the pre orders, the first batch is pretty limited to 150-200 pieces. Price is € 125.
The serial number and our logotype are etched inside the base, under the GPin, while our insignia, the aeolipile is milled onto the main body.
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