Al-Jazari and the Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices

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Thanks to the lovely Melanie M for hosting me today! You get my exciting views on why all the wildlife has moved to Canada, and the story of Flasher-Santa, and lots of gorgeous pics. I’m not in any of them, because nobody touches mom’s camera, and I mean no one.

The new book, The General and the Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari, is out tomorrow and I feel very happy and excited to share this book with everyone. Al-Jazari is one of the coolest inventors from the Golden Islamic Age. He studied mathematics, and then turned his hand to practical problem solving. Since he lived in the desert, what used to be Persia, he worked on various mechanical water lifting devices.





He was an artist at heart, though, and soon his water lifting devices turned into fountains and toys and robots, maybe the first mechanical robots.




And then he started making clocks, gorgeous perpetual motion machines that worked with shifting water weights and were several stories high, designed to fit into town squares. The elephant clock is one of the most famous, but he also built the castle clock shown here




For you geektastics, here are some youtube videos so you can see the elephant clock working! Is this cool, or what?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doYPp-...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q9G0S...

Here’s a link to the new book: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/stor...