The difficulty of pulling heavy loads was definitively solved in ancient Greece by inventing powerful machines that were usually characterized by the general term windlasses. The discovery of the endless screw (helix) and its application into gearboxes showed that overcoming heavy weights would no longer have any limits. According to legend, Archimedes applied this technique in the presence of the king Hieron II and he managed single-handedly, by simply turning a lever and applying minimal force, to launch the colossal ship “Syracusia”, which was built under his supervision. Observing this endless overcoming of heavy loads by adding gears or pulleys, he excitedly exclaimed “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth” (Pappus of Alexandria). For example, the combination of a screw and a gear that has 500 teeth, having a lever to screw axis ratio of 1:10 and a gear to drum ratio of 1:10, increases the applied force 50,000 times!
