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The Triumvirate: Coal, Iron, and Steam

technicshistory.com

11–14 of 14 posts

Re: The Triumvirate: Coal, Iron, and Steam

#11
technics were invented in 1979 by cool dj hercuhito. here is incontrovertible proof from an internet primary source. not to mention that the elamites had their own alphabet that still survives after they fled conquest of constantinopole and headed to india where it's relaxed and safe. https://happymag.tv/technics-sl-1200/#:~:text=Technics%20as%....

second reference, all you need to base your purchase decision of your railroad or billiards table as suits your idiosyncratic anachronistic needs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vFY8ufrslw&list=PLfUV806q_R...

Re: The Triumvirate: Coal, Iron, and Steam

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't need to melt it to work with it. From https://acoup.blog/2020/09/25/collections-iron-how-did-they-... : "The second problem is chemical, because we are never going to melt this iron. Our furnaces can’t get that hot (and even if they could, melting this iron would cause it to absorb a lot of carbon from our fuel, which we do not want). So we’re going to be reducing our iron – that is, getting it to change…

"It is not known when or where the smelting of iron from ores began, but by the end of the 2nd millennium BC iron was being produced from iron ores from at least Greece to India" ... "The place and time for the discovery of iron smelting is not known, partly because of the difficulty of distinguishing metal extracted from nickel-containing ores from hot-worked meteoritic iron.[2] The archaeological evidence seems to…

> Even the source you linked mentions actual smelting as early as 900BCE.

Smelting does not imply that the iron or iron ore is ever in a molten state.

Re: The Triumvirate: Coal, Iron, and Steam

#13
post #8

Q: Why is Ohio full of steelworks? A: Because it’s halfway between the iron of Lake Michigan and the coal of the Appalachians.

Is that the full story?

Intuitively it seems to me the better place would be either where the coal is or where the ore is. Either that or it doesn't matter, as long as it's between them and not somewhere else altogether.

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