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

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

#201

Post by marcosdumay » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

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…

One of the most important, but that people forget very often. They needed to right to have strange ideas without being chased down and killed due to them.

The Europe science and engineering moved into England much before the economical activity, and as far as I can see, it was mostly because of that one. Some of the greatest minds of the time were literally chased outside of Italy during that move.

Also, it's a right that was missing from most of the world for about a millennium by that time.

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

#202

Post by stareatgoats » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:00 PM UTC

antonhowes wrote: post #193

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 have written very extensively on the evolution of the early patent system - I actually have a not-yet-completed, so far 9-part series on the context of the Statute of Monopolies - but you’ll be in for something of a surprise in Part III. (Spoiler: the most generous ever English patents was seemingly granted to an early steam engine in the 1660s but to little effect)

OK thanks that sounds interesting, will keep a lookout!

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

#203

Post by marcosdumay » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

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…

A lot of very smart people went into nuclear up to the 80's. It didn't make much of a difference.

People severely underestimate the impact computers have on our society and the dynamism of the current day R&D. Even here on HN.

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

#204

Post by antonhowes » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

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 don’t think this fits the evidence. At least for the 17thC. People in England did not know how to make good iron with coal, let alone steel, despite many decades of extraordinary government encouragement and special incentives - witness the many, many failed patents that had to be reissued from Sturtevant in 1612 all the way through to the 1660s and beyond.

Cities like London made the switch early on to using coal as a fuel over the course of 1570-1600, but this was for domestic use. Industrial use lagged many decades behind, with iron very much last - long after glassmaking, saltmaking, brewing, and even baking.

When the English iron industry struggled to adapt to rising fuel prices, the overwhelmimg response was just to import it from Sweden. And that was especially the case with the steel industry, which didn’t really take off in England until the breakthroughs of the mid-18thC (long after Newcomen or Savery).

If there’s evidence I’m missing, however, I’d very much like to know.

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

#205

Post by antonhowes » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

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...

Please read both parts I and II. I specifically addressed various widely-held myths about Hero’s engines, and about aeolipiles.

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

#206

Post by antonhowes » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

zabzonk wrote: post #2

What I have always wondered about is why heavier-than-air flight was not invented earlier? Or put it this way: when was the folded paper (or your material here) airplane invented, and by whom? Then, why not make it bigger?

Fantastic question, which is some way down on my to-do list after the steam engine. The discussion this prompted is a real goldmine, so thank you.

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

#207

Post by zackmorris » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

Subjugation.

Almost the entirety of the human population has been under some form of servitude or bondage since the beginning. Only a handful of experiments in democracy like the USA managed to exist for more than a few hundred years. And those owed their existence to either slavery or the oppression of women. For every James Watt, there are 10,000 people just as smart who spent the entirety of their lives toiling to make someone else rich.

As long as we view progress through the lens of our own merit, nothing will ever change. Which is perhaps my greatest disappointment with how the 21st century has played out vs the original vision of the internet as a great equalizer providing knowledge and resources for everyone in an egalitarian fashion. We all got sold a bill of goods by the wealthy financiers who own everything now, including HN which was quickly coopted sadly.

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

#208

Post by jhgb » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

fellellor wrote: post #144

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.

What is slavery if not systematically, grossly under compensating someone for their work? Modern industrialised economies have plenty of tools to simulate the effects of slavery. Although without the fun stuff like whipping and other forms of gratuitous cruelty. In its essence slavery is an exchange of labor deal where the buying party has it way better than the selling party.

> What is slavery if not systematically, grossly under compensating someone for their work?

No, it's the notion that you have second-class citizens or even non-citizens with limited legal rights enforced by the state, said limitations usually being in the realm of property rights, personal freedoms, etc. At least that is fairly easy to define, whereas "grossly under compensating someone" is a vastly more nebulous term (who decides what is and isn't "under-compensating"?)

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

#209

Post by zehaeva » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #154

visiblink wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use of the word dependencies in this context is perfect. Untangling the history of technological innovation is an adventure into dependency hell.

It could be a pretty nice 'coffee table book': a walk through history of inventions, with the dependencies of each one listed (to one or maybe two degrees only of course). You could pick it up anywhere, read forwards; back from something specific (or forward, if you made it a doubly linked list?); or back from whatever 'the end' would be.

You might be interested in James Burke's TV Show Connections!

Which does this sort of thing for like 8 episodes. Go and learn why you can't have cars without swamp gasses!

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

#210

Post by awongh » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #201

legitster wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One of the most important, but that people forget very often. They needed to right to have strange ideas without being chased down and killed due to them. The Europe science and engineering moved into England much before the economical activity, and as far as I can see, it was mostly because of that one. Some of the greatest minds of the time were literally chased outside of Italy during that move. Also, it's a right…

The Europe science and engineering moved into England much before the economical activity

interesting- I haven’t heard of this view before. can you give some examples?