Global Fastener News

New Book Names Archimedes as Father of the Screw

John Wolz

The New York Times asked author Witold Rybczynski to write an essay on “the best tool of the millennium.”
When he settled on the screwdriver he began searching a thousand years of history for mentions of the earliest screwdriver proved. His search for the first screwdriver yielded some history of the screw and a book: One Good Turn � A Natural History of the Screwdriver & the Screw.
Rybczynski traces the development of screws and screwdrivers from the Greek invention of the water screw in the second century B.C., possibly by Archimedes, to the 1936 patent for socket screws by Henry Phillips of Oregon.\
What might interest the fastener industry most is his final chapter, which reviews literature to determine the “Father of the Screw. ”
“The water screw is not only a simple and ingenious machine, it is also, as far as we know, the first appearance in human history of the helix. The discovery of the screw represents a kind of miracle. Only a mathematical genius like Archimedes could have described the geometry of the helix in the first place, ” Rybczynski justified his choice. “If he invented the water screw as a young man in Alexandria, and � as I like to think � later adapted the idea of the helix to the endless screw, then we must add a small but hardly trifling honor to his many distinguished achievements: Father of the Screw.”
See the book review in the November 10, 2000, issue of Fastener Industry News.