Why was Roman concrete so durable?

Chemistry might be important, but we don't necessarily need that deep of an analysis.

Romans didn't mind over-engineering with massive, inefficient structures. They didn't worry about complex/thin shapes, or any tensile elements. No rebar, no "piping" cement, etc. And they could put up with extremely long cure times.

The end result is very, very dense concrete.

We could probably recreate the durability of their concrete if we were actually willing to put up with the compromises they represent.

https://practical.engineering/blog/2019/3/9/was-roman-concre...

cobblestones for the roads

Please don’t do this, it’s against the rules:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".

the article talks about evidence which has always been present in evaluations of Roman concrete which was "disregarded as merely evidence of sloppy mixing practices, or poor-quality raw materials," and this kind of thing REALLY infuriates me, as a layman.

if you don't know how to make Roman concrete, don't assume anything about what you see in Roman concrete while you're trying to figure out how it was made.

The modern-day belief that we are superior to humans thousands of years ago is just an absolutely insane idea, to me. we are more technologically advanced because we have more shoulders of giants to stand on, and we are NOT smarter or more clever than humans of 5000-10000 years ago. we just aren't.

as soon as you believe that we are superior to our ancestors, you dismiss the evidence you are looking for as "sloppy mixing practices, or poor-quality raw materials" and you prove modern-day humans as inferior, or at least you prove your own efforts as careless and incomplete.

leave no stone unturned when you are trying to understand something you do not understand; your lack of understanding could be due to your false assumptions.

That is... not a smooth ride.