Hasan al-Rammah

Hasan al-Rammah (Arabic: حسن الرماح‎) (died 1295) was an Arab[1] chemist and engineer during the Mamluk Sultanate who studied gunpowders and explosives, and sketched prototype instruments of warfare, including the first torpedo.[2] Al-Rammah called his early torpedo "an egg which moves itself and burns." It was made of two sheet-pans of metal fastened together and filled with naptha, metal filings, and saltpeter. It was intended to move across the surface of the water, propelled by a large rocket and kept on course by a small rudder.[3]

Al-Rammah devised several new types of gunpowder,[4] and he invented a new type of fuse and two types of lighters.[3]

References
  1. Elgood, Robert (1995). Firearms of the Islamic World: In the Tared Rajab Museum, Kuwait. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 9781850439639.
  2. Hinds, Joseph (23 February 2009). "Very, Very Early Torpedoes". Great History. Archived from the original on 2 November 2013. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  3. Partington, James Riddick (1999), A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder, Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 203, ISBN 0-8018-5954-9
  4. Al-Hassan, Ahmad Y. (1992-03-27). Islamic Technology: An Illustrated History (1st ed.). Cambridge ; New York : Paris: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-42239-0.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.