Aeolipile on a chariot

The aeolipile is a pneumatic machine whose invention is attributed to the Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century. By heating water in a metallic sphere with two tubes, Hero produced steam whose escape made the sphere spin. Using this principle, this extraordinary 18th-century aeolipile moved of its own accord to the delight of enthusiasts of cabinets of curiosities. It was part of the cabinet of the physicist Jacques Alexandre César Charles.