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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

#171

Post by 3pt14159 »

mason55 wrote: post #168
legitster wrote: post #145

Environmental collapse and the price of steel! I think people forget just how expensive metal was. Carpenters would lock up their saws because the blades were so precious. People knew how to make cheaper steel from coal for a long time, but it was regarded as an inferior product and avoided. However, charcoal is labor intensive stuff to collect. By the 1700s, some cities in Europe had so depleted their available fore…

Sounds like energy production recently. While oil was cheap enough we had no reason to invest in cleaner tech. Even the threat of climate change isn’t enough. It’s only when oil gets real expensive that we invest in alternatives.

Imagine all of those minds that went into oil extraction and where else they could have been better spent over the years. I know turbines really leveraged computer models to achieve such stunning efficiency, but in all honesty I don't think it would have taken much past the 70s for us to have achieved nuclear / renewables at similar energy output as oil / gas at the same timeframe if we didn't have the shortcut available for so long.

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

#173

Post by varjag »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #71
varjag wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The theoretical stack required for successful IC design very much guarantees it wouldn't remain at steampunk.

Remember, 'integrated' meant initially just 'more than one component'. It would start with poster-sized wiring diagrams, switch elements, photosensitive spots etc. As it got smaller and more circuit elements were added the math may have progressed with it.

It's more than the math. It requires modern understanding of electromagnetism and material science accounting for semiconductors. From that things like practical electric motors/generators and plethora other technologies become essentially a corollary.

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

#174

Post by legitster »

legitster wrote: post #145

Environmental collapse and the price of steel! I think people forget just how expensive metal was. Carpenters would lock up their saws because the blades were so precious. People knew how to make cheaper steel from coal for a long time, but it was regarded as an inferior product and avoided. However, charcoal is labor intensive stuff to collect. By the 1700s, some cities in Europe had so depleted their available fore…

Imagine if you were living in this period - England was constantly at war, the trees had all run out, and quality metal was nowhere to be found. You would think you were in the late stages of humanity, not at the cusp of the greatest moment of human progress.

Also, if we wanted to go back even further, the true roots are probably the Enlightenment. Before Wilkinson and Watt and Darby could think to develop technology, they needed certain political rights that didn't exist to previous humans. The rights to privately acquire land, create corporations, sell across markets - things that lay people didn't have access to in earlier eras. And most importantly, courts that would enforce said rights for you!

And they needed double-entry bookkeeping! Perhaps one of the most underrated human inventions of all. Your wealth was no longer determined by how much stuff physically hoard, but by a record of entitlements.

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

#175

Post by carapace »

xaedes wrote: post #113

I was always under the impression that it would be cool to have solar cells or mirrors automatically follow the sun using mechanical processes like those depicted in the article, without the need for additional electronics and motors. Does something like this exist and I only don't know of it?

Wax.

> A wax motor is a linear actuator device that converts thermal energy into mechanical energy by exploiting the phase-change behaviour of waxes.[1] During melting, wax typically expands in volume by 5–20%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_motor

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

#177

Post by el_nahual »

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…

> with entrenched "automation" like this, no inventions are actually needed.

Which is why our word for the ultimate automaton--the "robot," comes from the Czech robotnik, or forced laborer/slave.

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

#178

Post by bko »

legitster wrote: post #145

Environmental collapse and the price of steel! I think people forget just how expensive metal was. Carpenters would lock up their saws because the blades were so precious. People knew how to make cheaper steel from coal for a long time, but it was regarded as an inferior product and avoided. However, charcoal is labor intensive stuff to collect. By the 1700s, some cities in Europe had so depleted their available fore…

I wonder if there is anything today that would need to come down (or up) in price to kick off a revolution. I've heard some argue that was decentralized payments online (cryptocurrency) but that hasn't led to much outside of speculation IMO.

The other thing I heard was battery technology. Just recently a podcast with Matthew Ball, he makes the argument that AR/VR/metaverse technology needs a breakthrough (in part) in battery technology. Right now the best system can run at half the performance you need for 30 minutes and gets really hot.

https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/matthew-ball/

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

#179

Post by Gravityloss »

3pt14159 wrote: post #171
mason55 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like energy production recently. While oil was cheap enough we had no reason to invest in cleaner tech. Even the threat of climate change isn’t enough. It’s only when oil gets real expensive that we invest in alternatives.

Imagine all of those minds that went into oil extraction and where else they could have been better spent over the years. I know turbines really leveraged computer models to achieve such stunning efficiency, but in all honesty I don't think it would have taken much past the 70s for us to have achieved nuclear / renewables at similar energy output as oil / gas at the same timeframe if we didn't have the shortcut avail…

Oil extraction engineering has a pretty phenomenal return on investment. If oil sells at 100 dollars per barrel, that's 600 dollars per cubic meter. If you produce a cubic meter per second (1/200th of world production), that's 50 million dollars per day.

But certainly, nuclear or renewables could have been developed more and earlier.

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

#180

Post by pratik661 »

legitster wrote: post #174
legitster wrote: post #145

Environmental collapse and the price of steel! I think people forget just how expensive metal was. Carpenters would lock up their saws because the blades were so precious. People knew how to make cheaper steel from coal for a long time, but it was regarded as an inferior product and avoided. However, charcoal is labor intensive stuff to collect. By the 1700s, some cities in Europe had so depleted their available fore…

Imagine if you were living in this period - England was constantly at war, the trees had all run out, and quality metal was nowhere to be found. You would think you were in the late stages of humanity, not at the cusp of the greatest moment of human progress. Also, if we wanted to go back even further, the true roots are probably the Enlightenment. Before Wilkinson and Watt and Darby could think to develop technology…

Rights to privately acquire land, create corporations, and sell across markets were extant across different civilizations throughout history.

The Chola merchant guilds had formalized corporate structures that dissipated the risk of long voyages 2000 years ago. Seeing that the Romans traded with the Cholas, the Romans probably had corporate structures too.

Humans have been living in complex societies since the Bronze Age. It’s difficult to run a complex society without some sort of bureaucratic organization.

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