Greek geometer and inventor whose writings preserved for posterity a knowledge of the mathematics and engineering of Babylonia, ancient Egypt, and the Greco-Roman world and who contemplated the notion of automation some 2,000 years ago. He alone created the world's first automatic doors, which were used to open temple doors; the world's first vending machine, which gave worshipers holy water when they dropped a coin into a slot; singing birds, which were water powered; the fire engine and the world's first steam engine.

Heron made the steam engine as a toy, and called his device "aeolipile," which means "wind ball" in Greek. The steam was supplied by a sealed pot filled with water and placed over a fire. Two tubes came up from the pot, letting the steam flow into a spherical ball of metal. The metallic sphere had two curved outlet tubes, which vented steam. As the steam went through the series of tubes, the metal sphere rotated. The Greeks never used this remarkable device for anything but a novelty. A steam engine designed for real work was not designed until 1690, when Dionysius Papin published plans for a for a high-pressure steam engine. His innovations helped to pave the road that eventually led to the comfort that we are now taking for granted.

Heron was a rather mysterious figure in history. Of the scant information we have about him, we know that he was probably born in 10 A.D. and died around 70 A.D. We have no idea where he spent his childhood years. We only know that he eventually wound up living in Alexandria, Egypt, then a city controlled by the Romans. This particular choice of residence later became part of his identity. In time, people started to call him Heron of Alexandria.

Heron was a famous mathematician of his era. During his lifetime, he published many books documenting geometric formulas that he had either created or painstakingly collected from other sources. He supposedly found a way to compute the area of a triangle given only the lengths of the sides. That acclaimed formula, dubbed as Heron's formula, may actually be the work of another notable Greek mathematician, Archimedes (287 B.C. - 212 B.C.)