Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier? Part III • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by bitexploder » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 3:46 AM UTC

andrewla wrote: post #136

andrewla wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great thesis because it can be falsified. The contention you are making is that between 1640 and 1690 the standardization of units of measurement and the invention of the lathe meant that Kalthoff (say) could not produce a viable steam engine in the 1640s, but Savery could successfully produce one in the 1690s. I suspect this thesis is false, but I wanted to state it here before I did any research into it.

Some basic research I think indicates we can rule out the standardization of units of measurement; there were no serious attempts at this in the timeframe in question. Hard to say about the lathe; as the article notes, Wilkinson's work in cannon boring machines certainly made James Watt's life easier, but that was still way in the future (circa 1774) so there doesn't appear to be anything relevant to the timeframe th…

I think I conflated invented with reproducibility, etc.. Without relatively precise (for the tome) tolerances on your components you can’t build a steam engine that works. I have machined a steam engine from pretty limited pieces before on my lathe. The cool thing about them is they do tolerate a lot more variance than what comes next in the evolution of engine design, but only so much. Wish I had my books detailing the intertwined history of precision machine tooling and steam engines developing hand in hand. Anyhow I think other comments covered it. I should have been more precise with the claim :)

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

#152

Post by bobbylarrybobby » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 5:11 AM UTC

marktangotango wrote: post #93

dboreham wrote: post #58

Watt needed to get a set of technologies developed to make a workable efficient steam engine. E.g. how to bore a straight cylinder in a material that withstands high pressure and temperature. Another aspect is that solutions tend to occupy a niche within the existing environment. E.g. an iPhone is no use to a Babylonian because they have no 5G infrastructure. A Lamborghini is no use to a Roman because a) no gas stati…

> it'd get stuck behind all the ox carts already on the road. Lol, that's pretty much the case today, as anyone who's driven a sports car in traffic, on public streets can attest! In my public education the steam engine received zero coverage which is a pity because it's development and application spurred so much science and understanding. I've often thought a science curriculum based on the study of steam and work…

In the US, I believe that’s AP physics B, whose topic is thermodynamics and “integration without integration” (i.e., the work done is the area under a PV graph)

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

#153

Post by mjan22640 » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 8:05 AM UTC

jiggawatts wrote: post #14

lordnacho wrote: post #6

I think the reason is best described by Factorio. Yes, with a lot of spaghetti belts and manual crafting, you can make late-stage products. But to do it well, in a way that transcends merely being able to make a handful of items, you need a huge underlying economy. You end up having to re-arrange your whole factory, or you need to clear new land, which means you need to spend some time on diversions like improved mil…

A nice explanation for the "rate of progress" is the percentage of the population that is not involved in the production of food. Since the dawn of humanity up until "very recently" in the grand scheme of things, something like 95 to 98 percent of the population were directly involved in food production. There were the odd shamans, priests, tribal leaders, or what have you, but everyone else made themselves busy hunt…

The percentage of scientists is going to grow exponentially till non-scientist deplete, and might be even better benchmark of progress.

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

#154

Post by virtualritz » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 9:32 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #108

virtualritz wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 80's my uncle, a trained mechanical engineer, tried to build a working scale small gauge steam locomotive at home for fun. He was a train geek. I reckon it was maybe 1/16 scale or the like. He machined all parts on his Emco Unimat II, a 70's hobbyist convertible lathe. The final piece was beautiful. Ultimately the kettle couldn't build up enough steam because of tolerances of parts. He machined the resp. parts…

I'd love to read a writeup on that project. Sounds fascinating.

Me too. But unfortunately my uncle passed away two months ago.

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

#155

Post by shagie » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

mercutio2 wrote: post #148

shagie wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While science fiction, the Safehold series by David Weber gets into this. As the series opens, everything is made by its own guild/foundry to the point of cannon balls for one ship wouldn't work on another because of the lack of standardization. Guns (muskets) where such that if a part broke you needed a gunsmith to craft a new part for it... which might have slightly different dimensions so it was best if it didn't…

Wow. I loved this series. I skipped essentially every line of character building, which was terrible. But the build up to creating the universe, the prelude, and then all the historical engineering details were so good I didn't mind skipping over all the attempts at having characters after the initial scene was set.

I’ve found that I’ve enjoyed books more as audible… in most cases (there was one notable case where that reader and editor completely messed up the third book of a trilogy). The thing with audible is that I can’t skip over the “boring” parts as easily. Safehold and Anathem where two that this was important for (I will note the Recluse series got odd if you listened to them in chronological order rather than publication order as the author kept using the same phrase in later books and the quality from book to book varied wildly).