HYDRAULIC systems are old technology. This statement is true, to a degree. The field of hydraulics cannot be measured in decades, or even centuries. In fact, the basic principles appear to date back thousands of years to the water clock, which employed the first known float valve and was designed in Alexandria around 250 B.C. This is thought to be the earliest fluid feedback system on record, although since then there has been a long gap in its documented history. The pressures of the Industrial Revolution helped rediscover the potential of hydraulics. Two world wars and the rapidly expanding automotive and aviation industries have further driven evolution into today's complex pumps, valves and servomechanisms. Their origins may be ancient, but for controlling the enormous pressures created by relatively small energy inputs, hydraulic systems have been unparalleled.
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