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Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

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Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#141

Post by Terr_ »

yourapostasy wrote: post #76
evincarofautumn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard of bootstrapping a machine shop from a lathe as well—apparently there’s a series about it, written by this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._Gingery

Gingery did even better than showing how to bootstrap from a lathe. He showed how to bootstrap the lathe itself starting from building a charcoal foundry and chunks of raw metal. Be careful, though: this is a rabbit hole that draws maker-types like rare earth electromagnets. Once you read through Gingery's books, you can easily find yourself wandering down the library stacks and Net pulling up information about how t…

It may be reassuring (or worrying) to see its resemblance to "battle tested" biological systems. Even the simplest cells can't just "re-evolve" a magically-removed piece, the whole thing comes crashing down.

The winning strategy so far seems to be duplication, so it's about time we get some colonies on other planets to help ensure continuation of the metaspecies.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#142

Post by vanderZwan »

dredmorbius wrote: post #133
vanderZwan wrote: post #44

> However, from that place, it seems to have spread so rapidly across Eurasia and the Middle East that experts cannot say for sure where it originated. Well the very nature of the wheel itself probably helped with that - I wonder if that holds true for all transportation-related inventions?

Lateen sails took a particularly long time to spread. They had been introduced to the Mediterranean region as early as the 2nd century BC (and had been developed much earlier in China and Arabia), but were not brought into widespread use in European sailing ships until the 1400s. This is hugely significant as a lateen-rigged ship can sail far closer to the wind than a square-rigged ship, giving it much better maneuve…

Thank you very much for following up on that off-hand question!

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#143

Post by monk_e_boy »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #29
jlampa wrote: post #8

If you think INVENTING the wheel took a long time, wait till you learn how long it took to put them on suitcases: http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/did-you-know-that-we-went... (spoiler alert: we got to the moon first!)

That's more a mass production thing isn't it - we had trolleys of various forms you could load your bags on to. Strong plastics, probably made such mass production cheap enough. People rich enough to have wheeled luggage in the past would have just used servants, it's seemingly economics rather than technology that prevented such "inventions" as attaching wheels to things permanently instead of temporarily. A modicum…

> we had trolleys of various forms you could load your bags on to

and a man or boy you paid to push the trolley. Much more civilised.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#144

Post by pja »

eveningcoffee wrote: post #115
adrianN wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bicycles would be pretty hard with the metallurgy of ancient rome, I think. Introducing soap is very easy in comparison.

Bicycle actually needs very few metal parts, if any.

But the parts they do need are quite high up the tech stack: decent quality bearings being the most obvious.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#145

Post by pja »

nradov wrote: post #138
dredmorbius wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lateen sails took a particularly long time to spread. They had been introduced to the Mediterranean region as early as the 2nd century BC (and had been developed much earlier in China and Arabia), but were not brought into widespread use in European sailing ships until the 1400s. This is hugely significant as a lateen-rigged ship can sail far closer to the wind than a square-rigged ship, giving it much better maneuve…

And yet European naval architects continued using square rigging for most large vessels until the end of the age of sail even when they were fully aware of lateen rigging. So clearly there were advantages to square rigging beyond just conservative finance.

Square rig sails allow you to run with the wind more efficiently / quickly. Horses for courses...or in this case, sail rigs for the sailing you expect to be doing.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#146

Post by thomasthomas »

The invention of the wheel was so challenging that it probably happened only once, in one place

i disagree with this premise based on kevin kelly's simultaneous discovery phenomenon.

The fact that pretty well every invention and discovery you mention has occurred to two different people at possibly the same time. Possibly three. Possibly four. My favorite example of this is the light bulb, which in my part of the world a man named Joseph Swan gets the credit for inventing the light bulb and a terrible fraud called Thomas Edison came along and ripped him off. Well, if I live in Russia, I give the credit to Lodygin, and I'm equally cross with Edison. But actually if you drill down into history, in the 18th century there are 23 people in that decade alone who deserve independent credit for coming up with the idea of the incandescent light bulb. It was an idea ripe to be discovered. It was inevitable that it would be discovered in that decade. And that's true of almost everything. And then of course famously evolution itself, the idea of natural selection occurs to Wallace and Darwin at the same time, and Darwin has to rush into print to prevent himself being preempted. Even relativity--we tend to think of Einstein as unique in coming up with this idea that nobody else, that it took the world by surprise and nobody believed him. Well, that's true, but if you look at what Hendrik Lorentz was doing at the same time, he was well on the trail. He would have got there if Einstein had been run over by a tram. The double helix of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), incredibly important discovery--big race going on to find it. That, the technology had reached the point where we're going to find the genetic code around that time. So, there's a sort of complete dispensability of scientists and inventors that really surprises people when you think about it.

[0] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/02/matt_ridley_on_1.ht...

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#147

Post by Houshalter »

dredmorbius wrote: post #123
Houshalter wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's probably why the industrial revolution didn't happen. There's a good comment below that explains other societal reasons why the industrial revolution didn't happen, like the lack of contract law and investors. I also read a great theory once (but I can't find it again through google!) that the industrial revolution really required the invention of the cannon first. Building an efficient steam engine in rom…

Steam engines need fuel. There's no coal (to speak of) in Italy. Europe's coal belt starts in Scotland, runs through England, into France (and a nubbin in northern Spain / Portugal), Germany, and Silesia. Oddly enough, the first countries to industrialise were, in order, England (which wasn't busily falling to pieces and/or fighting off invaders), then (after they'd stopped falling to pieces and/or fighting off invad…

As you mention yourself, the US got by using mostly wood until relatively late in the second industrial revolution. There is still a lot of useful energy in wood. Even ancient rome burned a ton of wood for heat and their own industries. It would have been more expensive and less sustainable sure, but I think it would have been enough to start. There is also wind and water power which was utilized a lot during the start of the industrial revolution.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#148

Post by Houshalter »

pja wrote: post #144
eveningcoffee wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bicycle actually needs very few metal parts, if any.

But the parts they do need are quite high up the tech stack: decent quality bearings being the most obvious.

Do they absolutely require it though? Looking at images of the first bicycles, they seem quite crude: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Draisine... The earliest ones don't even have pedals.

The Romans had wheels and carts that seemed to work. It doesn't seem like a huge leap to put a human on them.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#149

Post by dredmorbius »

Houshalter wrote: post #147
dredmorbius wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam engines need fuel. There's no coal (to speak of) in Italy. Europe's coal belt starts in Scotland, runs through England, into France (and a nubbin in northern Spain / Portugal), Germany, and Silesia. Oddly enough, the first countries to industrialise were, in order, England (which wasn't busily falling to pieces and/or fighting off invaders), then (after they'd stopped falling to pieces and/or fighting off invad…

As you mention yourself, the US got by using mostly wood until relatively late in the second industrial revolution. There is still a lot of useful energy in wood. Even ancient rome burned a ton of wood for heat and their own industries. It would have been more expensive and less sustainable sure, but I think it would have been enough to start. There is also wind and water power which was utilized a lot during the sta…

Wood is sustainable until it isn't.

Rome and the Mediterranian had a long history of deforestation, going to Egypt and Sumer. The first story, the Epic of Gilgamesh, can be read as a story of ecological limits and deforestation.

Roman heating systems, hypocausts, had voracious fuel appetites. I'm not finding a solid reference but believe one could consume a ton or more of wood daily. That was imported from distant locations.

Early industrial windmills and water wheels typically produced 10 - 20 kW of power, with perhaps a few thousands throughout Europe, for a total power capacity of a few tens of MW. The power availed by coal and oil is thousands and millions of times this.

U.S. woodfuel consumption wasn't sustainable, and hasn't increased from levels of the late 19th century.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#150

Post by api »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #119
api wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After initially being skeptical and disliking him for libertarian leaning political reasons, I've come around to wondering if John Maynard Keynes might have been even more right than we have imagined. Slave labor is kind of an extreme case of the paradox of thrift. Slaves have no disposable capital and they flood the labor market down to zero. Slavery is like a permanent deflationary spiral. There is just no reason t…

Slaves are not really that cheap. You have to feed slaves, train slaves, guard slaves (from running away and from being stolen by somebody else).

They are much cheaper than paid labor in many ways.
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