| Abstract: |
The conquest of wind energy did not begin yesterday. History tells us that windmills have existed since the earliest antiquity in Persia, In Iraq, In Egypt and in China.In the seventeenth century (B.C.) it is said that Hammurabi, king of Babylonia, conceived a plan to irrigate the rich plains of Mesopotamia with the aid of wind energy. The windmills used at thattime, in that country, probably included vertical-axis machines similarto those whcse ruins remain on the Iranian plateau.In the third century B.C., in a study dealing with pneumatics, an Egyptian, Hero of Alexandria, designed a four bladed horizontal-axis wlndnill which povided compressed air to an organ. May we deduce that this ”kind of windmills was common in Egypt. It is difficult toaffirm it. However we can say, without fear of being refuted, thatthe birth-place of wir,c.tnotors is to be found in the eastern part ofthe Mediterranean basin and in Chjna where only vertical-axis machineswere known. It was only during the Middle Ages that windmills app-eared in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. We find them, a littlelater, in Great Britain, Holland and Germany. Some authors suggest
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