Windmill

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Windmill (disambiguation).

A Dutch tower windmill surrounded by tulips

A windmill is an engine that is powered by the wind to produce energy. Often they are in a large building like traditional post mills, smock mills and tower mills. The energy windmills produce can be used in many ways, traditionally for grinding grain or spices, pumping water, sawing wood or hammering seeds. Modern wind power machines are used for generating electricity and are more commonly called wind turbines.

1 History
- 1.1 Early history
2 Windmills in culture and literature
3 Footnotes
4 Further reading
5 See also
6 More images
7 External links
- 7.1 History links

[edit] History

Hero's wind-powered organ (reconstruction)

A windwheel that operated an organ was described as early as the 1st century AD by the Greek engineer Hero. That could have been the first machine in history that used wind power.^[1] ^[2] Vertical axle windmills were used in eastern Persia (Sistan) by the 9th century AD as described by Muslim geographers.^[3] Horizontal axle windmills of the type generally used today were invented in Northwestern Europe in the 1180s.^[4]

[edit] Early history

The first windmills had long vertical shafts with rectangle shaped blades and appeared in Persia in the 9th century.^[3] The authenticity of an earlier anecdote of a windmill involving the second caliph Umar (634-644 AD) is questioned on the grounds of being a 10th century amendment.^[5] Made of six to twelve sails covered in reed matting or cloth, these windmills were used to grind corn or draw up water, they were quite different from the European versions. A similar type of vertical shaft windmill with rectangle blades, used for irrigation, can also be found in 13th century China.

[edit] Windmills in culture and literature

Spanish windmills at La Mancha.

Miguel de Cervantes' book Don Quixote de La Mancha, - which helped cement the modern Spanish language and is regarded as one of the greatest works of fiction ever published ^[6] - features an iconic scene in which Don Quixote attacks windmills that he believes to be ferocious giants. This gave international fame to La Mancha and its windmills, and is the origin of the phrase "tilting at windmills", to describe an act of futility.

[edit] Footnotes

↑ A.G. Drachmann, "Heron's Windmill", Centaurus, 7 (1961), pp. 145-151
↑ Dietrich Lohrmann, "Von der östlichen zur westlichen Windmühle", Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, Vol. 77, Issue 1 (1995), pp.1-30 (10f.)
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 Ahmad al-Hassan, Donald Hill: Islamic Technology. An illustrated history, 1986, Cambridge University Press, p.54f. ISBN 0-521-42239-6
↑ Dietrich Lohrmann, "Von der östlichen zur westlichen Windmühle", Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, Vol. 77, Issue 1 (1995), pp.1-30 (18ff.)
↑ Dietrich Lohrmann, "Von der östlichen zur westlichen Windmühle", Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, Vol. 77, Issue 1 (1995), pp.1-30 (8)
↑ BBC.

[edit] Further reading

A.G. Drachmann: "Heron's Windmill," Centaurus, 7 (1961), pp. 145-151
Hugh Pembroke Vowles: "An Enquiry into Origins of the Windmill", Journal of the Newcomen Society, Vol. 11 (1930-31)

[edit] See also

Renewable energy
Renewable resource
Land reclamation
watermill
wind generator
Don Quixote
Molinology

[edit] More images

Pitstone Windmill, believed to be the oldest windmill in the British Isles	Windmills of Western Siberia, taken by Prokudin-Gorskii, c. 1910	The windmills of Kinderdijk, the Netherlands	Double windmill and common Aeromotor windmill in Texas
The middle-18th-century windmill of Nesebar, Bulgaria	Windmill near Tés	A modern windmill in Sweden.