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

81–90 of 155 posts

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

#81

Post by isk517 »

notahacker wrote: post #60
derekp7 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question I have is how did mega projects in ancient times (such as the Pyramids) get enough people to work on them, and still have enough food to feed them? Or were the people on those projects (and other city-building projects at that time) only less than 5 percent of the total population? Also, is that 95% that are spending the majority of their time on food production? Or is that including people that spend a…

Pyramids were built during offseasons. But it wouldn't really have been an option to redeploy that unskilled, uneducated labour towards industrial research instead, at least not without a radical change to ancient societies. Not least because kings and religions tended to want non-agricultural engineering resources focused on monuments and defences, not finding more labour/cost-effective ways of increasing output of…

Also wasn't ancient Egypt ridiculously fertile? I imagine being able to consistently produce excess grain means you can divert workers to other projects.

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

#82

Post by hef19898 »

cdot2 wrote: post #52
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…

The earliest example I know of with interchangeable parts were the 1819 Hall rifles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpW054cVfHc

Maybe even earlier with French artillery carriages. But yes, it sis really start around the Napoleonic Wars.

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

#83

Post by minraws »

I think this question is very intriguing and weird in the same breath, like why was X not invented a few decades earlier.

I would honestly like to read papers on it both from sociology and scientific discovery point of view to contrast what justification are we provided for this.

Which IMHO seems like a problem of pure chance, basically invention of X-1 pushes invention of X ahead and so on.

Really curious how people would explain aberrations and delay in theoritical discoveries against physical inventions in this respect as well.

Cause I don't think relatively would have required gravitational theory but I would wager it would have definitely helped.

I am most certainly very intrigued, good job author you have me hooked. No pun intended.

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

#84

Post by rocqua »

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…

Note that the first steam engines in productive use were at coal mines.

This is because they were incredibly inefficient, and needed huge amounts of coal. Really the only way to solve the transport problem was to not have to transport the coal at all. As it saw continued value produced, the mechanism was made more efficient, until eventually it was viable to use in certain other places.

However, the transport problem still remained. You could replace muscle power with steam power, but if it still took massive amounts of muscle power to get your coal, that wasn't worth much. The breakthrough here came with stream trains. Now you could use coal to transport your coal. And muscle power was possible to be largely eliminated.

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

#85

Post by hef19898 »

anjc wrote: post #59
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…

> Modern people overestimate how long we have been able to engineer things precisely I think you're underestimating it also. For example, micrometres capable of measuring imperceptible differences have existed for many centuries, same for manufacturing machines (lathes, mills) that can shape objects to imperceptible requirements. Cameras probably just don't require such precision.

Cameras always have been optical appliances. And as such they in deed do require a lot of precision. Especially those with changeable lenses, unless you don't mind your focal plane not being where your film, or nowadays sensor, is.

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

#86

Post by NikolaNovak »

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…

That's fascinating, because recently I started thinking that I'm underestimating how long we've been able to craft (which may be different than engineer, or mass manufacture) things precisely.

Recently I dug teeny bit into pocket watches, and then wrist watches, which turnst out were a thing way longer than I imagined!

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

#87

Post by [deleted] »

_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.

[deleted]

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

#88

Post by mannykannot »

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…

So then the next question is: why was precision engineering not developed earlier? One apparently plausible answer is that the perceived need did not arise earlier, but that leads into the question of what changed that perception? If the answer is "the development of the steam engine", we have a causal loop which is not clearly anchored to any particular time.

One of the often-overlooked prerequisites for Watt's improvement of the steam engine through the use of an external condenser was the need for a precision cylinder. Then-recent advances in boring machinery for making cannons provided the means, but cannons had been around for centuries before this development came about. Furthermore, while this improvement depended on an advance in precision engineering, Newcomen's steam engine was already eighty years old.

The industrial revolution and its successors depended on the mutually-supporting bootstrapping of several disparate facets of technology, all of which could possibly have started earlier, so it seems unlikely that the timing of the initial spark can be attributed to an until-then absence of just one of them.

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

#89

Post by merely-unlikely »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #86
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…

That's fascinating, because recently I started thinking that I'm underestimating how long we've been able to craft (which may be different than engineer, or mass manufacture) things precisely. Recently I dug teeny bit into pocket watches, and then wrist watches, which turnst out were a thing way longer than I imagined!

> Recently I dug teeny bit into pocket watches, and then wrist watches, which turnst out were a thing way longer than I imagined!

Weren't these handcrafted by highly skilled and highly paid specialists for a long, long time. In contrast to more modern mass production.

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

#90

Post by hef19898 »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #86
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…

That's fascinating, because recently I started thinking that I'm underestimating how long we've been able to craft (which may be different than engineer, or mass manufacture) things precisely. Recently I dug teeny bit into pocket watches, and then wrist watches, which turnst out were a thing way longer than I imagined!

They were. With the following caveats: non, or limited, interchangeability of parts, horrendous precision of showing the correct time. All of which can be traced back to low precision manifacturing.
Post reply on HN