Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier? Part III

antonhowes.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 155 posts

Re: Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier? Part III

#121

Post by hef19898 »

rofrol wrote: post #45
photochemsyn wrote: post #32

Author has an interesting point of view, I always assumed that the issue was the quality of the steel available at the time was too low to prevent explosive failure under pressure or collapse under vacuum: > "Now, one might suggest that Petty and Kalthoff simply lacked the tools or materials to make sufficiently strong and precisely fitting vessels and pipes. But I highly, highly doubt this." This issue has been hist…

Similar comment here: The British industrial revolution was built from iron, not steel. Mass production of steel didn't appear until the 1880s, with the Bessemer converter. This was half a century after the deployment of successful railroads. Iron and steel was known to the Roman empire. The steel wasn't very good, even by the standards of antiquity, but it was good enough for short swords and some tools. They got as…

Until the end of the 19th century iron production out paced steel by roughly 9:1, after that it slowly changed and reached, IIRC, in the early 20th cebtury the opposite ratio. Good luck finding iron nowadays...

Re: Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier? Part III

#122

Post by quickthrowman »

_trampeltier wrote: post #49
sumtechguy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is that also a matter of economics too. For example take the iPhone. All the bits for an iPhone were in place easily 10 years before that. Yet we did not have it. It took breaking the idea of paying 40 bucks a megabyte, or before that some amount of money per min to talk on land line and over the air. Once those two things were 'gone' we got what we consider a modern cell phone. Sometimes it means taking away t…

I never understood, why there was no Palm with phone in the mid 90s.

Google “Motorola DynaTac” and you’ll see why, that’s the first phone I remember seeing in the mid 90s.

Re: Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier? Part III

#123

Post by Huh1337 »

anon_123g987 wrote: post #117
steveBK123 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern people overestimate how long we have been able to engineer things precisely. I used to use a lot of vintage German cameras. Really right up through the 1950s the tolerances were wide enough that no two cameras were exactly alike. The parts were all replaceable, and there were often adjustments & shims inside to keep things in spec. For example, one camera might have part A that's a little long so it's matching…

> [...] the camera needed frequent enough service [...] Let's hope that in the future software engineering becomes mature enough that we don't need daily security updates.

I think that needing legions of Archeologist-Programmers who will continuously tune the systems is much more likely.

Re: Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier? Part III

#124

Post by steveBK123 »

Huh1337 wrote: post #123
anon_123g987 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] the camera needed frequent enough service [...] Let's hope that in the future software engineering becomes mature enough that we don't need daily security updates.

I think that needing legions of Archeologist-Programmers who will continuously tune the systems is much more likely.

Shhhh don’t ruin my retirement part time gig plans

Re: Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier? Part III

#125

Post by dahfizz »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #120
Damogran6 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a 89 Corvette...designed in the late 70's early 80's before computers were generally used to do so. It was a mass of shims and slotted holes to get things to line up. I had a 1998 Corvette...designed in the early 90's with CADCAM. No shims. Things like a door latch and door made by entirely different companies, the three holes to attach the latch weren't shimmed or slotted, and the replacement fit exactly with…

“I had a 89 Corvette...designed in the late 70's early 80's before computers were generally used to do so. It was a mass of shims and slotted holes to get things to line up.” This has nothing to do with computers. Detroit just didn’t care about building decent cars back then. Mercedes and many others were able to build very nicely designed cars long before CAD/CAM was available.

Wouldn't you know it, the mercedes door handles from 1985 used slotted holes[1]. As much as you like them, Mercedes cannot transcend the technical abilities of the time.

[1] https://www.ebay.com/itm/174693656016

Re: Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier? Part III

#126

Post by moffkalast »

steveBK123 wrote: post #35
cptaj wrote: post #18

An important factor seems to be precision engineering. I saw the point made in The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester, where they argue that while all the science and experimentation was there, it wasn't until precision parts were widely available that steam engines really solved all their problems and became viable https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068671-the-per…

Modern people overestimate how long we have been able to engineer things precisely. I used to use a lot of vintage German cameras. Really right up through the 1950s the tolerances were wide enough that no two cameras were exactly alike. The parts were all replaceable, and there were often adjustments & shims inside to keep things in spec. For example, one camera might have part A that's a little long so it's matching…

Meanwhile the Swiss, making watches machined to an impossibly perfect degree since the 18th century: "I have no such weakness."

Re: Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier? Part III

#127

Post by moffkalast »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #115
cptaj wrote: post #18

An important factor seems to be precision engineering. I saw the point made in The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester, where they argue that while all the science and experimentation was there, it wasn't until precision parts were widely available that steam engines really solved all their problems and became viable https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068671-the-per…

The atmospheric steam engines which were first put to practical use did not require precise manufacturing. The cylinder and pistons were finished by hand and eyeballed for correctness (far from precise.) The gap was made up using leather seals and a layer of water sitting on top of the piston.

This just poses further questions as to why electric motors weren't popularized before the steam engine instead. They're so easy to make that it's entirely possible to make one out of a literal box of scraps.

We have some records of batteries dating back far even to ancient Egypt, magnets can be found on the ground, the only real obstacle is making thin copper wire reliably I guess.

Re: Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier? Part III

#128

Post by hef19898 »

steveBK123 wrote: post #116
anjc wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presumed OP was talking about winders and so on. If shims were used for critical elements like optical alignment, I'm guessing that it's because this was the cheaper route to precision, rather than due to an inability to measure and manufacture precisely.

Optics absolutely had shims in this era. Talking 1930-1950 era Leica lenses for example. 50mm lenses that you can’t just swap in a replacement element without adjusting shims because they would match them and shim at factory. I recall some lenses from the era having their actual exact focal length inscribed inside since they weren’t exactly 50mm and the variance was 0.2mm or so. Don’t even get me started on Soviet ca…

Recently I disassembled a Nikon lens, the first 24-120 with VR as the VR constantly engaged. The plan was to disconnect the VR unit completly and use, interim, without VR. Didn't work, as apparently apperture control (electronic in this lens) and focus (AF and manual, also electronic) go over the same platine. No VR, that worked, but also no focus or apperture.

Point of the story, the lens had some shims to get into the proper focal plane relative to the camera. The model in question doesn't have the best sharpness reputation, some people put it on the worst 10 list of Nikon lenses. The sample I had is sharp so (VR didn't engage until 28 mm). My theory now is tgat the lens is sharp, and the bad rep comes from compromises during manufacturing (Thailand instead of Japan, with all the corresponding issues of setting up high precision operations in a new site), and potentially sub-par QC. Not sure if other lenses have shims as well, I'm kind of not inclined to disassemble perfectly working samples just to find out.

So no, shims aren't per-se a bad sign but rather one of a certain calibration strategy. If those shims are everywere so, manufavturing quality propably isn't the best.

Oh, one word on 50 mm lenses. Those are among the fastes, sharpest lenses ever regardless of manufacturer. And dirt cheap compared to "pro" models. Seems to be quite well understood optics.

I do have two pre-AF Nikon lenses, and those are master pieces of precision mechanics, dating back to the late 70s and early 80s.

Re: Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier? Part III

#130

Post by Huh1337 »

steveBK123 wrote: post #124
Huh1337 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that needing legions of Archeologist-Programmers who will continuously tune the systems is much more likely.

Shhhh don’t ruin my retirement part time gig plans

Don't worry there's going to be a need for literal legions, and it still won't be nearly enough

"I had a problem so I thought I'll use Java - now I have a ProblemFactory"

Post reply on HN