3 ms·
I heard the story differently. Wheels are only really useful if you have good enough streets to use them on and building streets is a huge upfront investment. I
by danbruc 10y ago
I heard the story differently. Wheels are only really useful if you have good enough streets to use them on and building streets is a huge upfront investment. It is also a chicken egg problem - wheels are only useful with streets and streets are only useful for wheels. Without streets you are better of carrying your stuff around than trying to push it around on wheels in natural terrain. That is also why the wheel first appeared in toys, because you can push them around on a flat table. So the wheel was probably well known before it saw widespread adoption for transportation which additionally to the lack of streets had to overcome the engineering problems mentioned in the article that come up when you scale the wheel from a toy to a wheel burrow.
- dualogy 10y agoStreets? Where we came from, we needed no.. streets ;) I mean, didn't "streets" emerge really from commonly-travelled paths carved by feet and horse hooves and time, and really most non-paved paths are quite fine for most wheels? Perhaps they last longer on pavement, but other than that..
- danbruc 10y agoI didn't want to imply pavement when I said streets. The question is what commonly traveled paths look like before the wheel. If they were just desire paths, then they were not suitable for carts because they are to narrow even if they were used with horses or other animals instead of just walking. Could they already have been wide enough for example because of several people walking next to each other? Certainly, but were they? I personally can not think any path I have ever used that was wide enough for carts but never intended or actually used by any sort of vehicle.
- acjohnson55 10y agoPacks of large animals carve impressively road-like paths between their points of interest in the scrub.
- bhaak 10y agoStreets are also useful if you don't use them with wheels. The Roman empire made good use for it with their armies (of course, also for trade) and Roman soldiers were mostly on foot and a few on horses.
- Houshalter 10y agoThe Romans absolutely used wheels. Those roads were so well travelled with wagons that there are still grooves cut into them where the wheels wore away the pavement. The roman armies would have used large numbers of wagons to carry all the food and supplies an army needs, which is the main reason they needed roads.
- ap22213 10y agoStreets happen naturally when there's enough population density and permanent structures. Of course, those things require agriculture first (or at least plentiful, permanent food sources like fish).
- tpeo 10y agoStreets and roads aren't useful only for wheels. Try taking a mile-long walk through a (seemingly) flat field and through a paved surface as an experiment. The first one will be much bumpier and tiresome than the second for any given speed, and you'll be at a higher risk of injury due to careless step. And the benefit of having a flat surface is greater the more rugged is the terrain that must be crossed. This is why, though the Incas didn't use the wheel, they had roads nonetheless. And the Romans, too, built their own roads mainly for the speedier movement of their armies while on the march.