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Why wasn't the steam engine invented earlier? Part II

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Re: Why wasn't the steam engine invented earlier? Part II

#81

Post by jacquesm »

tialaramex wrote: post #77
dredmorbius wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More generally: technology (engineering) delivers results . Understanding why it does so is not required, and often comes quite late. If you want explanation , that's a role of science, though it's often preceded by a very long period of systematic observation. One striking example is geology, which has existed since at least the 17th century, but which didn't formally adopt its central organising and explanatory pri…

However, this blundering about approach only works if almost anything could have worked and so you just keep trying until you hit upon it. You can discover that eating one of the dozen types of plants growing on the hillside nearby treats toothache without any overarching theory about how that could work, just try eating stuff and see what happens - but you aren't going to invent the LED lamp this way. Example: When…

It's not that simple. Lots of things that are discovered are discovered when the goal was something else entirely. The number of accidental inventions is very large and it isn't rare at all that the accidental invention (or, more appropriately named, accidental discovery) is of much more value to society than the original goal was.

Re: Why wasn't the steam engine invented earlier? Part II

#83

Post by zabzonk »

eesmith wrote: post #65
stevenjgarner wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What amazes me about heavier than air flight is that it was invented all over the planet at virtually the same time by all kinds of unrelated people who had no connection or communication with or little knowledge of one another. Sure here in the US we ethnocentrically recite the Kitty Hawk event of the Wright Brothers as if it appeared in a vacuum out of nowhere. But in reality, heavier than air flight was invented s…

> who had no connection or communication with or little knowledge of one another There was a large enthusiastic group of people working on heavier-than-air flight, with with meetings and newspaper publications. The Spectator has an article titled "Flying Motor-Cars" at https://archive.org/details/sim_spectator-uk_1901-08-31_87_3... which comments: ] The mechanical skill of the world, which is very great, greater perh…

Some of Bell's kites here: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/alexander-graham-bell-tetra...

Re: Why wasn't the steam engine invented earlier? Part II

#84

Post by jacquesm »

masswerk wrote: post #66
narag wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only the tough materials (stone, bones, metal, pottery) remain. I always wonder how many civilizations disappeared without a trace because they built their cities with wood. Maybe a lot of devices were invented and reinvented many times and then forgotten because there wasn't a practical purpose for them at the moment.

My favorite example is the Antikythera mechanism. It is quite clear that this had not been a one-of-a-kind, but that there must have been (many) predecessors of this technology to arrive at the kind of workmanship and layout that doesn't show any marks of hesitation or corrections as in the sole example, we know of. And that we know of this example at all, is just by sheer luck. Generally, we only know of landmark si…

It probably wasn't as common as the slide rule was in the 50's but I'm pretty sure there were more of these and some predecessors as well. The chance that we have found the only example that ever existed for something so useful seems slim.

Re: Why wasn't the steam engine invented earlier? Part II

#85

Post by qsort »

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #76
terhechte wrote: post #40

The Greek philosoper Hero of Alexandria actually invented something close to a steam engine in the 1st century BE [1]. Whenever I think about "obvious" inventions which happened quite late in our civilization, I remember "The road not taken", a fantastic short story that plays with this idea. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_(short_stor...

So why did it not win? The answer. Slaves. Slaves in the mines, slaves in the home, slave driving the rowboats and all services. Labour was cheap and plenty, also intelligent - with entrenched "automation" like this, no inventions are actually needed. Which goes to show, that technology stratifyng society strangles itself, by producing a servant class outcompeting all technology. Give it a hundred years and the "natu…

Isn't that kind of the other way around?

Ignoring the obvious moral question, in a primarily agrarian economy slave labor is useful because it's relatively easy to control and there is no need for specialization. OTOH in an industrialized society you wouldn't want slaves even if you could have them.

Re: Why wasn't the steam engine invented earlier? Part II

#86

Post by cfmcdonald »

cletus wrote: post #72

I looked in Part 1 and 2 and didn't see this point raised, which is a shame because it's one of my favorite stories of intertwined technological process. An engine requires piston that move within a bore. To create the pressure that process has to be precise. This process was perfected in making cannons. Why I like this story is that it embodies the unintended consequences that underlies so much of progress, like Ale…

Actually a Savery engine (the type of engine the OP's post starts off with) doesn't have a piston at all. And the Newcomen atmospheric engine didn't require a very precise fit to function either. It wasn't until Watt started the drive for more efficient engines that accurately boring the cylinder became important.

Re: Why wasn't the steam engine invented earlier? Part II

#87

Post by Thorentis »

stareatgoats wrote: post #79

Not sure what conclusion the author will come to as an answer to the question in the title (part III is still to come). But if it doesn't include the liberation of inventors (i.e. the protection of intellectual property through patents) and the legal framework for "anyone" to profit from their inventions then I'll be disappointed. As his story indicates so far it was not for the want of ingenuity that the industrial…

I reject the idea that patent and IP law would have made these developments occur sooner. In fact, I blame the slow down in technological development partly on patent and IP law. You think the rapid development seen during the industrial revolution could have happened if people were at litigious as they are now? The ability to create derivative inventions is essential to progress.

Re: Why wasn't the steam engine invented earlier? Part II

#88

Post by CaptArmchair »

napier wrote: post #33

Quoted post unavailable.

I'm not sure what you're implying here.

First, are you equating "tech tree development" with pure engineering? Because that sounds like a reductionist view on history given that human advancement in thinking stretches far beyond technical / practical innovations. And that surely arbitrarly didn't stop between 500-1500AD just because the Roman Empire dissolved either.

Second, taking a eurocentristic perspective is a fallacy when it comes to history. Other parts of the world saw plenty of advances in mathematics, astronomy, navigation, trading, finance, public administration, medicine, literacy and so on. Just consider the many advances in the Islamic world or the Mongol empire. Ghengis Khan wasn't just a warlord, he was also a surprisingly progressive statesman introducing notions such as "freedom of religion" throughout his empire. The Silk Road wasn't just the odd caravan passing through the desert. It was as an intricate trading network connecting cultures and continents. Arguably, many of the ideas that was spawn the age of Enlightenment in Europe can be traced back as imported from outside.

Third, The so-called "Dark Ages" are a contested concept in modern historiography. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography) It's, at best, a form of value attribution. And modern historians are quite reluctant to label the period between 500-1800 as "stagnant". On the contrary.

Fourth, neither religious zealotry nor progressive thinking are absolutes. Sure, the world wasn't an utopia in the past. History is rife with examples of barbarism and persecution. But let's not pretend that the Industrial Revolution somehow did away with all that. In fact, while the world entered the so-called Information Age over the past 40 years, it also saw subsequent wars spurred by religion in the Middle East, Balkans, Africa and South-East Asia.

Re: Why wasn't the steam engine invented earlier? Part II

#90

Post by dane-pgp »

barry-cotter wrote: post #42
napier wrote: post #33

Quoted post unavailable.

The only reason we have as much record of the Western Roman Empire as we do is endless copying and recopying by monks. The Eastern Roman Empire and later the Arabs preserved a lot but without the ecclesiastical establishment much more of the Wheat would have lost all literate culture. On economic and technological growth Brad Delong has a new book out, Slouching Towards Utopia, and he kind of hits the idea of very, v…

A fun quirk of history, embedded in the English language, is the fact that "cleric" (meaning "a member of the clergy") has the same Latin root as "clerk" (meaning a worker who is trained and literate). Of course they both have the same adjectival form: clerical.
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