Wheel and Axle

(c. 3500 B.C.E.)

Wheeled transportation is demonstrated by the Mesopotamian potter's wheel.

wheel and axle examples.

wheel and axle definition.

wheel and axle simple machine.

wheel and axle diagram.

wheel and axle mechanical advantage.

Most ideas develop from something already in existence rather than emerging from nothing or the brilliant mind of a smart scientist. This is undoubtedly true of the wheel and the axle that is attached to it, which originated from two distinct sources. The rotating potter's wheel, created in Mesopotamia circa 3500 B.C.E., was the first. The wheel aided in the quicker creation of higher-quality pots even though it was not a necessary instrument for the potter's trade. The sledge, a crude but effective method of pulling heavy items on parallel sleds or wooden bars, was the second source.The sledge worked best in ice and snowy situations and on warm sand, but it struggled to go over hard, dry ground and required a lot of effort.

Some of the earliest visual writing in history provides evidence that the employment of the sledge and the potter's wheel led to the invention of the wheel. Examples from southern Mesopotamia's Uruk, in Sumer, date to circa 3200 BCE and depict a variety of sledges, some with sleds and others with wheels. The original wheels were simple but efficient: two or three planks of solid wood were nailed together, and the resulting wheel was then chopped. A set of wheels may rotate concurrently when they were mounted on a fixed axle.It only took a small amount of imagination to realise that a set of wheels might be used to pull a physical or human weight in a cart, waggon, or chariot after they were mounted on a fixed axle that allowed them to rotate in unison. But this invention should not be solely attributed to Mesopotamia. Wheels have also been discovered on a clay pot from Poland, and they have also been discovered in burials in the northern Caucasus; this earlier evidence dates to roughly 3500 B.CE.