What is an Archimedes Screw?

The Archimedes screw today is usually forgotten by the main populace, due to the increase of electric systems and more advanced designs of displacing water. However, before electricity and mechanical horse power, there was an urgent need for water to be carried a distance for crops that could be applied when less man power was available. The Archimedes screw pump has been used since antiquity, notably by Archimedes himself in Ptolemaic Egypt in the mid-third century BCE (Lyons, pg.1), as well as evidence that the ancient Egyptians used a screw-like machine to carry water from one location to the other more easily than from manual labor (before Archimedes's construction). According to softschools.com, " To use the Archimedes screw to lift water, the pipe must sit on an angle with one end in a body of water. Then, the screw must be turned with a hand crank or motor. As the bottom of the screw turns, it will scoop up water. The shape of the screw will trap it, the water will be carried up to the top of the pipe, and it spill out " (Rorres, https://www.math.nyu.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/Screw/animations/screw_animated.gif)

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Structure of the Screw