waterwheel-race
Evolution of the Wheel & Axle
invention of wheel
For this exercise, W&A refers to a pair of devices which may rotate multiple revolutions relative to each other. More precisely, the axle is essentially the joint, ie. bearing, between a fixed frame and the rotating wheel assembly (which may include the axle shaft).
We find rotating parts in nature in the skeletal structures of animals, none of them can rotate multiple times. There is one exception in the microbiota, the spinning flagellum of some organisms. These could not have been examples followed by the human inventors of W&A, too small to be seen, but the skeletal examples (literally shoulder joint, PIE word is aks) would no doubt have been familiar to hunters and herders. Their leap of imagination was to notice the constant radius of a circle and connect it to the rotating joint seen in skeletons. (A multiply-rotating body part must be separate from the circulatory system, ie. inert.)
Who were the inventors?
Mesopotamia gets credit for stationary wheel to turn pottery.
first documented artifacts.. from around 4000 BC when the Sumerians were beginning to live in cities
ThoughtCo
History of turned Pottery
Early pottery was made in various methods, none of which were turning on a wheel. That innovation is dated to between 6k and 3.5k yr ago.
Mobile wheels claim goes to Eurasian Steppe people, Yamnaya culture
first known wagon driver is a man buried atop his wagon east of the Black Sea... roughly 5400 years ago
For the technophile: more advanced machines, internal wheels
Lagrange rearranges Newton's science of motion
putting external energy to work: draft animals pull, windmills, waterwheels turn
one of the first rotating machines, Archemedes' screw (still in use)
cranking: rotating lever
windlass, capstan, or winch (turning to increase pulling force)
pulley block, a cascade of wheels
crank and repeat: reciprocating piston and crankshaft
updating waterwheel to turbine
updating windmill to gas turbine
recording and playback devices: tape and disk
all the world is a wheel
including solar systems and spiral galaxies
cyclical theories
Google's logo for its Chrome browser is a wheel, with hidden sign for 666 LoL.
there doesn't seem to be anything here