Why wasn't the steam engine invented earlier? Part II • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by qsort » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 1:04 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #96

qsort wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>OTOH in an industrialized society you wouldn't want slaves even if you could have them. Really? Leaving aside the moral issues most associated with slavery specifically, there is a huge demand in modern industrialized society for all sorts of low cost human labor. If middle class-ish people in the West could hire more people for the equivalent of a couple dollars an hour many would absolutely do so.

It's very unlikely that slaves would be able to cover any present-day jobs except very menial service tasks.

Cleaning houses, mowing lawns, sure. But you wouldn't even get as far as a taxi/truck driver, which is one of the least qualified jobs today.

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

#102

Post by caymanjim » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 1:04 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #59

I've often thought we could have had integrated circuits shortly after the invention of photography. 150 years earlier! It would make an interesting steampunk world with steam and hydraulics and CPUs.

Why did you think that? We didn't have transistors until the 1960s.

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

#103

Post by masswerk » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

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…

Mind that the article mentions a Dutch patent from 1598.

On the other hand, the development of the steam engine and its application is partly grounded in Trevithick's fierce rejection of existing patents (hence high steam pressure) and also in the rather loose enforcements of the Stephenson patents.

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

#104

Post by Ekaros » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 1:07 PM UTC

zabzonk wrote: post #75

dredmorbius wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Powered flight came about virtually the moment a high power-to-weight engine (based on aluminium and petrol fuel) existed. Once rapid design-build-test cycles were practial, the initial Wright design rapidly shifted to a monocoque fuselage with forward wings and empennage, emerging within a decade. In just over 30 years after the Wright's first powered flight, the DC-3, an aircraft still in commercial operation was f…

Could have used a rocket? They've been around for ages. It seems to me that for flight the construction materials (silk, bamboo, string, glue - what the early WW1-era aircraft were made from) and the propulsion (solid-fuel rocket) have been around for over a thousand years.

Yes, but no...

Rocket does have the trust ratio needed. But then there is questions of burn time and control. So you could get up there, with some risk. But not stay there for very long time.

Short googling for solid fuel rockets seem that longest burn times are less than 3 minutes... And that is best case scenario with 20th/21st century technology...

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

#105

Post by mannykannot » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

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…

Slavery is a big part of the answer, but Hero's device can not be scaled up to do useful work without consuming vast quantities of fuel, even in comparison to the low standard of efficiency set by Newcomen's engine.

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

#106

Post by pbhjpbhj » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

morelisp wrote: post #18

globalise83 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often wonder the same. As someone with a hobby of making unpowered gliders from balsa wood and laminating sheets, I often wonder why such simple contraptions (I can make very nice gliders with around 20 pieces of wood and one sheet) weren't discovered using easily available woods and paper many centuries ago and extrapolated to bigger machines with fabric and wooden struts. Seems that the raw materials would have b…

> Truly remarkable that gliding firebombs and the like were never invented for warfare. What? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kite#Military_applications Steering is important though, you need to a) go up, b) go the right place, not back at you, c) come down, again not where you are.

I wonder how much people tried to develop ballistae projectiles, perhaps once they had bolts/darts they were good enough and longer range just wasn't necessary?

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

#107

Post by bambax » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

> Hero [Hero of Alexandria, 10-70 AD] even suggested a mechanical use for the effect. By setting a fire on a hollow, airtight altar, the heated air within would flow down a tube into a sphere full of water, which in turn would be pushed up another tube into a hanging bucket. The bucket, when sufficiently heavy with water, would then pull on a rope to open some temple doors. Crucially, when the fire was extinguished, Hero noted that the cooling of the air in the altar would draw the water back into the sphere again, lighten the bucket, and so allow the doors to be closed by a counterweight.

Put the contraption on a chariot, use the ropes to turn the wheels instead of "temple doors" (!) and voilà: you have an auto-mobile.

Even if it's much less practical than using a horse, it's amazing that in almost 2000 years, nobody thought of making that for its sheer entertainment value -- or even to convince people that ghosts exist!

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

#108

Post by pbhjpbhj » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

morelisp wrote: post #8

zabzonk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of supports my question - if tethered kites, why not untethered ones (i.e. aircraft)? And man-lifting kites have, of course been a thing for ages.

Reliable steering requires aerodynamics requires quite a lot of mathematical development, plus considerable precision engineering. And it's extremely dangerous, a lot of people did die trying to make steerable kites.

Hang gliders seem quite imprecise, https://www.google.com/search?q=bamboo+framed+hang+glider

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

#109

Post by dane-pgp » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 1:17 PM UTC

zabzonk wrote: post #50

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…

I think that what you say is probably true, but things like thermal-riding or slope-soaring gliders would have been very useful (for the military, if nothing else) before the invention of the IC engine.

As discussed further down, kites were indeed seen as useful for the military in the late 19th century. Wikipedia says[0]

> In the early 1890s, Captain B.F.S Baden-Powell ... developed his "Levitor" kite, a hexagonal-shaped kite intended to be used by the army in order to lift a man for aerial observation or for lifting large loads such as a wireless antenna.

A glider may not have been suitable for carrying an antenna, but aerial observation via glider is an idea that must have occurred to people in the army, even before the invention of the IC engine.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-lifting_kite

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

#110

Post by stareatgoats » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 1:17 PM UTC

masswerk wrote: post #103

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…

Mind that the article mentions a Dutch patent from 1598. On the other hand, the development of the steam engine and its application is partly grounded in Trevithick's fierce rejection of existing patents (hence high steam pressure) and also in the rather loose enforcements of the Stephenson patents.

> You say the anthill is the result of the amazing collaboration of all the ants in the colony, but look here is an ant that goes off doing nothing. What say you now?

I say the big picture is that the steam engine was developed within a legal system that in general protected IP rights, at least respected them on a completely different level than before. Granted there are more pieces to the puzzle, but let's not forget one of the most important pieces.