Were you worried that I’d leave you with nothing to think about over the holidays? Well, fear not, because I have some tempting tidbits of trivia with which to titivate our little grey cells.

As a starter for 10 points… suppose you are tasked with building a water clock. Let’s say there’s to be a big stone bowl with a fountain in the middle. Surrounding the bowl at 30-degree increments are to be 12 lions carved out of stone. Let’s assume you’ve built this beast, and a visitor arrives at the clock a little after noon. All they would initially see would be the water shooting up in the central fountain.

At 1 o’clock, water would start jetting out of the first lion’s mouth. At 2 o’clock the first lion would be joined by water jetting out of the second lion’s mouth. At 3 0’clock the first two lions would be joined by water jetting out of the second lion’s mouth. And so it would go, until midnight, at which point water would start jetting out of all the lions’ mouths for a while…. and then they would stop. And then the whole cycle would start again.

Now suppose that you had to create this 600 years ago using only tools that existed at the time. How would you set about this task? Well, my chum Jay Dowling just sent me a message saying, “They had this 600 years ago!” This was accompanied by a link to a very interesting YouTube Short Video that explains all (apart from how they did the math).

Speaking of ancient arts (we weren’t, but we are now), I’ve long been fascinated by the Greek mathematician and engineer Hero of Alexandria (10 AD to 70 AD). Hero, who was one of the greatest experimenters of antiquity, described building a rudimentary steam engine. Admittedly, this was little more than a kid’s toy, but I often wonder what would have transpired if Hero had taken this further and constructed a full-up steam engine, like the Steam Pump created by the English engineer and inventor Thomas Savery (1650 to 1715 AD).

I can envisage at least two arguments you may offer against Hero being able to pull this off. First, you might say that he simply wasn’t up to the task. I would refute this by reminding you that Hero also created the first coin-operated vending machine and the first wind-powered musical organ. “Ah,” you might respond, “but they couldn’t create mechanical mechanisms with the required level of precision in ancient Rome. In this case, I would first remind you that the ancient Greeks built the Antikythera mechanism, which is estimated to have been constructed in the late second century BC or the early first century BC, and which was pretty darned precise, let me tell you. Also, I would invite you to read The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester. In this book, Simon notes that the gap between the piston and the cylinder in the first steam engines was the same as the thickness of a small coin. This really isn’t all that precise in the scheme of things, and I bet this level of precision was achievable by Roman artificers.

If Hero had built a steam engine, I’m sure he would have started with a steam-powered machine to pump water (the Romans were big on water). It wouldn’t have taken Hero’s cohorts long to realize that steam-powered galleys, triremes, and quinqueremes (boats) would be advantageous. I’m sure it would have taken no more than a hundred years or so before steam-powered trains were spreading and speeding throughout the Roman Empire.

The saying "all roads lead to Rome" originates from the medieval era, specifically from a phrase written by French theologian Alain de Lille in the 12th century, where he stated "mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam," which translates to "a thousand roads lead men forever to Rome." Alain was almost certainly referring to the vast Roman road system that radiated outwards from the city of Rome, making it seem as though all paths eventually led there.

This portion of my cogitations and ruminations was spurred by that fact that I just saw an awesome graphic titled “All roads lead to Rome.”

I performed a reverse image search on Google Images, which led me to a detailed description of the graphic’s origin on Snopes (I love Snopes).

I’m currently re-reading Raising Steam by the late, great Terry Pratchett (RIP). Terry’s depiction of young Mister Simnel—the creator of the Discworld’s first steam engine (well, the first not to explode)—reminds me of the engineers I ran into when I was growing up back home in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England (see also my column To Get a Good Job, Talk Posh, Not Sheffield Tyke!).

Can you imagine how history might have changed if the Romans had working steam engines 2000 years ago? Instead of “All roads lead to Rome,” we might be saying “All trains lead to Rome,” and I bet they would have been on time if the emperor had anything to say about it.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about…

Have you heard the joke that starts off by saying Walmart is planning on closing 1,000 stores, followed by the punchline that at least 3 cashiers are expected to lose their jobs? The reason this joke is funny (well, we can laugh through our tears) is that there may be 20 or 30 checkout counters at a big Walmart super store, but only one or two will have someone serving customers.

The reason I make mention of this here is that my friend Rick Curl just pointed me at a very interesting video on YouTube titled Why the Other Line is Likely to Move Faster (or “Queuing Theory for the Holiday Season”).

In this video, the presenter reveals how "queueing theory"—which was originally developed by engineers to route telephone calls—can be used to determine the most efficient arrangement of cashiers and checkout lines.

As you’ll see, the video ends with some very good advice should you happen to find yourself in a checkout line that appears to be going slower than the lines around you.

Well, that’s all for the moment. I hope this blog has given you something to relax and think about over the Christmas/Hanukkah Holiday (these two occasions converge on the same day only an average of around five times every 100 years—the last time this happened was in 2005—you’re welcome). As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on anything you’ve read here.