Hydrostatics studies the laws of the equilibrium of fluids, while hydraulics deals mainly with the practical problems relating to the motion of water and the use of its force. Some important observations on bodies immersed or floating in water are attributed to Archimedes, while dozens of different hydraulic apparatuses were known since antiquity.

Galileo studied the phenomena of bodies immersed in water, proposed a different version of the hydrostatic balance, and made some interesting observations on pumps. In the seventeenth century, Blaise Pascal clarified the basic concepts of hydrostatics, while in the eighteenth century Leonhard Euler and Daniel Bernoulli laid the foundations of modern hydrodynamics.

Eighteenth-century collections of scientific instruments commonly included—in addition to devices for demonstrating the hydrostatic paradox—many models of hydraulic machines such as pumps, water-screws, and Hero's fountains.