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Over two thousand years ago, Hero of Alexandria produced the first apparatus that could properly be called a steam engine. It worked in a similar way to a revolving jet that we use today to sprinkle lawns in dry weather. A closed boiler was fitted with two vertical pipes with their ends bent at right angles. A hollow sphere was hung between these and pivoted on two short tubes that fitted into the upright tubes. There were two pipes at opposite sides of the sphere. When the water in the boiler was heated by a fire, the steam was forced into the sphere and the steam escaped from the small pipes which made the sphere revolve. This was a turbine.
