31–40 of 155 posts
> "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 historically researched with respect to artillery development, which seems to have been mostly bronze up until the 18th century, when reliable iron/steel artillery was introduced. For example:
https://www.billstclair.com/weaponsman.com/index.html%3Fp=32...
Perhaps the pressures and temperatures involved in steam engines weren't as great as those involved with artillery, but the cost of making a bronze steam engine might have been prohibitive.
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…
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 things so others can move into their place. In my example the economics of running a phone company had to change before an innovation could happen.
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…
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…
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 part B would be a little short to compensate. They'd sort it out at the factory where they have the parts bins and could keep trying different part Bs to match the part A installed until they had a close enough match, then shim it.
This was even more so in the 1920s-1940s cameras.
The cameras actually had stickers in the film compartment warning you to send it in for professional service for any repairs. Note the implication that the camera needed frequent enough service that they'd actually bother putting a sticker in it!
So for some we look back on the era as things being user-serviceable and parts replaceable, but it was that way for reasons of manufacturing ability.
The US presented a new need that I don't think really existed before: crossing vast distances over land, eventually all the way from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast. IIRC the population of the US was 2 million in 1800 and 50 million in 1900.
Others have mentioned precision engineering. This was an important factor and had its origin in manufacturing cannon bores.
But a bigger factor (IMHO) was steel. Steel existed before the mid-19th century but it was incredibly expensive (more expensive than gold) and relatively low volume. This all changed with the Bessemer process that allowed the mass production of inexpensive steel. It made Andrew Carnegie in particular incredibly wealthy in the process.
Trains existed before cheap steel but builds of railroads and trains absolutely exploded in the wake of cheap steel. This also led to the shift from wooden sailing ships to (ultimately) steel-hulled boats with engines.
So prior to trains, what were the potential use cases for a steam engine? Automobiles seem unlikely (given weight and size and the ubiquity and utility of horses). Ships? Maybe. But sailing is effective and fires tend to be bad news for ships.
So that really leaves factories, mills, etc. Mills in particular often used hydro power (ie a river turning a wheel). You could build them in locations with such features. Labor was also relatively cheap (and largely free in some cases ie slaves).
Ultimately I don't think it's one thing and it's hard to separate these factors cleanly. It becomes a chicken and egg problem. Advancement can often fuel each other.
It does seem like long distance transportation ultimately led to at least popularizing and mass producing steam engines.
Often multiple inventors arrive at the same idea at almost the same time, for example Edison and Swan for the light bulb, Meucci and Bell (among others) for the telephone, Tesla and Marconi for radio, the Wrights and many others for the airplane etc. possibly because the technological and social level of society has reached a certain point in its development when the "time is ripe" for a given invention. As Charles F…
The Wright Brothers didn't come up with the idea of the airplane at all — people had been working on it for over 100 years.
The Wrights made many contributions, notably a very efficient propeller, I believe. But some of their biggest claims, like wing-warping, succumbed to others ideas like Curtis’ ailerons.
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…
Early steam engines were developed well before the locomotive steam engine, which is generally what we associate with the term "steam engine". I don't think you can overstate the importance of the technological development in the 19th century on these developments. The US presented a new need that I don't think really existed before: crossing vast distances over land, eventually all the way from the Atlantic coast to…
There were a variety of earlier pieces of farm machines that could be driven by treadmills and belts; steam engines could naturally slot in as a drop-in replacement for the treadmills to power all of your equipment.