Screw (simple machine) of the last of the simple machines to be invented. It first appeared in ancient Greece and Egypt, and by the first century BC was used in the form of the screw press and the Archimedes' screw, but when it was invented is unknown. Greek philosopher Archytas of Tarrentum (428 – 347 BC) was said by the Greeks to have invented the screw. Although the Greek philosopher Archimedes is credited by the Greeks with inventing the Archimedes screw water pump around 234 BC. records indicate it was first used in ancient Egypt. Archimedes was first to study the screw as
Archimedes of circles. The earliest known copy of the text is in Arabic. The scholars T.L. Heath and Marshall Clagett argued that it cannot have been written by Archimedes in its current form, since it quotes Archimedes, suggesting modification by another author. The "Lemmas" may be based on an earlier work by Archimedes that is now lost. It has also been claimed that Heron's formula for calculating the area of a triangle from the length of its sides was known to Archimedes. However, the first reliable reference to the formula is given by Heron of Alexandria in the 1st century AD.