8 ms·

Slightly off topic, but stories like this remind me of the Aeolipile[0] from Ancient Rome. It was a simple steam engine invented in 250BC, but the Romans neve

Slightly off topic, but stories like this remind me of the Aeolipile[0] from Ancient Rome. It was a simple steam engine invented in 250BC, but the Romans never applied it to anything because there was no economic impetus. No one in antiquity seriously questioned slavery, and there was no major industry or constructions that couldn't be accomplished by throwing bodies at the problem until it was finished. In modern times, we done the same thing with a lot of industries, like agriculture. Fruit harvesting robots are totally feasible, but we have political and economic policies that make it easier to use migrant labor than it is to invest in innovation. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile

tynpeddler 8y ago
Aeoliphile is an open cycle engine and so inefficient that it's practically useless for doing work. It took the Europeans a lot of time to develop the skills necessary to build closed cycle steam engines efficient and powerful enough to do work.
- frabert 8y ago
  Doesn't change the fact that if the Romans thought that an engine would have been useful, they would probably have begun studying a way of making it more efficient.
- kilpikaarna 8y ago
  I'd also argue that ancient physics based around static objects would've been an insufficient basis for developing a theory of thermodynamics, which is what was required to turn the steam engine into more than a curiosity for pumping water out of mines. Without Newton and Galileo developing a physics of motion there wouldn't have been a Carnot.
  - chopin 8y ago
    Carnot's work came almost 50 years after Watt's development of his steam engine. Of course valuable, but not strictly necessary. One could argue that thermodynamics developed out of necessity for more efficient engines but it's not a strict prerequisite. As another example the brothers Montgolfier weren't aware that heated air could lift their balloon because it had less density than cold air. They still managed to get it work.
- chopin 8y ago
  I think that steam engines went hand in hand with the availability of coal. Even the production of steel (or iron) was hampered by the fact that there wasn't enough stuff to burn. Afaik there was much less forestry in Europe until the advent of coal as the wood was burnt for heating, cooking and iron work.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    Yes, this is a serious underappreciated problem. Before we had fossil fuels we were entirely dependent on inefficient biomass for comfort, survival and transport. And the production of coal from all but the shallowest mines requires pumps. One of the first uses of steam engines was ... pumping out coal mines.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    I remember whale oil being an important source of fuel for some uses as well
    - abakker 8y ago
      For lighting, definitely. I'm not aware of it having ever been used for heating at any scale?
  - Nomentatus 8y ago
    Certainly the 1712 Newcomen engine exploded the amount of available coal, because water could now be pumped from mines.
  - tynpeddler 8y ago
    I've also heard (but not confirmed) that the skills used for forging cannons and guns were necessary for developing the pistons used in lots of early steam engines
- Nomentatus 8y ago
  It's a wildly inefficient turbine; but better designs of turbines are very practical. Including a design Tesla originated that's remarkably similar, functionally, to the Aeoliphile. These too are not necessarily closed cycle. Getting the steam back saves a little energy 'cause the water you're boiling is hotter to start with, but that's a small saving compared to the energy cost to change the phase of water. The biggest problem with the Aeoliphile was just that it was a poor implementation, a lousy first prototype. Or to put that same case conversely, the real drawback was that there was no sufficiently cheap source of energy (even peat) back then. So there was no obvious reason to mount the learning curve.
goto11 8y ago
While you don't have to pay slaves, they were not free. They were expensive to buy and you had to provide food etc. (And they might rebel and kill you.) The Romans did use things like water mills, so they might as well have used steam engines if they had actually been practical. I'm not sure the Romans ever realized the device could be used to perform work. It is really just a curiosity.
raxxorrax 8y ago
Not to be confused with the Aiolipile, a very tasty garlic lake near Rome. Quite surprising that a steam engine existed that early. I hope it doesn't take another 2000 years for robots to be used for these tasks.
- magduf 8y ago
  >Quite surprising that a steam engine existed that early. I hope it doesn't take another 2000 years for robots to be used for these tasks. Most likely, it will take at least that long. Remember, the reason it took 2000 years to get from Rome's simple steam engine to what we have now is because Rome collapsed and its technologies and civilization were lost for over 1000 years while Europe suffered through the Dark Ages and Medieval times. The same is going to happen to us.
  - tabtab 8y ago
    The early practical steam engines of the 1600's were barely practical. It took experimenting and experience to make them practical for general manufacturing, not just niches. The same with semiconductors: it took decades of trial and error to make them more practical than vacuum tubes even though their "interesting properties" were known about in the 1800's. (Manufacturing them in consistent form proved daunting.) If you knew in advanced they had the most promise, sure you could pump R&D into them. But without such foresight, one cannot tell how much promise they actually have. Compare to cold-fusion, flying cars, and hot-fusion reactors: always "just around the corner" but never arrive in a practical sense. Promising-looking ideas don't always actually deliver in the short/medium-term, and vice versa. Unless they have value in intermediate form, they may not be a wise investment from the perspective of politicians/kings, who prefer results before they retire. Otherwise, they spend resources that don't get them re-elected or that don't give them an edge against enemies. Eli Whitney's "interchangeable parts" claim was mostly hype when it first appeared. But the semi-interchangeable nature of his products was good enough to make them more useful than the prior approaches. Half-reshaping for fit is better than full re-shaping. It kept his process running long enough to reach full interchangeability through gradual trial and error.
hugh4life 8y ago
"Fruit harvesting robots are totally feasible, but we have political and economic policies that make it easier to use migrant labor than it is to invest in innovation." While it's true the political and economic sentiment has been against farm automation, we haven't had the technology to make most farm automation tasks feasible until recently and it still has a long ways to go.
- alexgmcm 8y ago
  Yeah - but the argument is that we don't have the tech because there is no point investing in the research when you can get a load of cheap labour to do it the work instead.
tabtab 8y ago
Businesses often claim there's a "labor shortage" and lobby for overseas workers without changing their practices, such as paying more or allowing longer training curves for hirees that are a close enough match but not an exact match. They did this in agriculture and IT, and the lobbying usually worked. If denied the easy out, companies will change their employment practices and/or automate.
cobbzilla 8y ago
That's quite amazing. It reminds me of a book I read last year, "Kingdom of the Wicked". It presumes an industrial revolution in ancient Rome, around about the time you mention the Aeolipile was invented. The book is set in the first century CE; the Romans have cars, television, and other trappings of industrial life. It's really well written, if you're a history buff you'll chew right through it.

tynpeddler 8y ago

Aeoliphile is an open cycle engine and so inefficient that it's practically useless for doing work. It took the Europeans a lot of time to develop the skills necessary to build closed cycle steam engines efficient and powerful enough to do work.

frabert 8y ago
Doesn't change the fact that if the Romans thought that an engine would have been useful, they would probably have begun studying a way of making it more efficient.
kilpikaarna 8y ago
I'd also argue that ancient physics based around static objects would've been an insufficient basis for developing a theory of thermodynamics, which is what was required to turn the steam engine into more than a curiosity for pumping water out of mines. Without Newton and Galileo developing a physics of motion there wouldn't have been a Carnot.
- chopin 8y ago
  Carnot's work came almost 50 years after Watt's development of his steam engine. Of course valuable, but not strictly necessary. One could argue that thermodynamics developed out of necessity for more efficient engines but it's not a strict prerequisite. As another example the brothers Montgolfier weren't aware that heated air could lift their balloon because it had less density than cold air. They still managed to get it work.
chopin 8y ago
I think that steam engines went hand in hand with the availability of coal. Even the production of steel (or iron) was hampered by the fact that there wasn't enough stuff to burn. Afaik there was much less forestry in Europe until the advent of coal as the wood was burnt for heating, cooking and iron work.
- pjc50 8y ago
  Yes, this is a serious underappreciated problem. Before we had fossil fuels we were entirely dependent on inefficient biomass for comfort, survival and transport. And the production of coal from all but the shallowest mines requires pumps. One of the first uses of steam engines was ... pumping out coal mines.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- raverbashing 8y ago
  I remember whale oil being an important source of fuel for some uses as well
  - abakker 8y ago
    For lighting, definitely. I'm not aware of it having ever been used for heating at any scale?
- Nomentatus 8y ago
  Certainly the 1712 Newcomen engine exploded the amount of available coal, because water could now be pumped from mines.
- tynpeddler 8y ago
  I've also heard (but not confirmed) that the skills used for forging cannons and guns were necessary for developing the pistons used in lots of early steam engines
Nomentatus 8y ago
It's a wildly inefficient turbine; but better designs of turbines are very practical. Including a design Tesla originated that's remarkably similar, functionally, to the Aeoliphile. These too are not necessarily closed cycle. Getting the steam back saves a little energy 'cause the water you're boiling is hotter to start with, but that's a small saving compared to the energy cost to change the phase of water. The biggest problem with the Aeoliphile was just that it was a poor implementation, a lousy first prototype. Or to put that same case conversely, the real drawback was that there was no sufficiently cheap source of energy (even peat) back then. So there was no obvious reason to mount the learning curve.

goto11 8y ago

While you don't have to pay slaves, they were not free. They were expensive to buy and you had to provide food etc. (And they might rebel and kill you.) The Romans did use things like water mills, so they might as well have used steam engines if they had actually been practical. I'm not sure the Romans ever realized the device could be used to perform work. It is really just a curiosity.

raxxorrax 8y ago

Not to be confused with the Aiolipile, a very tasty garlic lake near Rome. Quite surprising that a steam engine existed that early. I hope it doesn't take another 2000 years for robots to be used for these tasks.

magduf 8y ago
>Quite surprising that a steam engine existed that early. I hope it doesn't take another 2000 years for robots to be used for these tasks. Most likely, it will take at least that long. Remember, the reason it took 2000 years to get from Rome's simple steam engine to what we have now is because Rome collapsed and its technologies and civilization were lost for over 1000 years while Europe suffered through the Dark Ages and Medieval times. The same is going to happen to us.
- tabtab 8y ago
  The early practical steam engines of the 1600's were barely practical. It took experimenting and experience to make them practical for general manufacturing, not just niches. The same with semiconductors: it took decades of trial and error to make them more practical than vacuum tubes even though their "interesting properties" were known about in the 1800's. (Manufacturing them in consistent form proved daunting.) If you knew in advanced they had the most promise, sure you could pump R&D into them. But without such foresight, one cannot tell how much promise they actually have. Compare to cold-fusion, flying cars, and hot-fusion reactors: always "just around the corner" but never arrive in a practical sense. Promising-looking ideas don't always actually deliver in the short/medium-term, and vice versa. Unless they have value in intermediate form, they may not be a wise investment from the perspective of politicians/kings, who prefer results before they retire. Otherwise, they spend resources that don't get them re-elected or that don't give them an edge against enemies. Eli Whitney's "interchangeable parts" claim was mostly hype when it first appeared. But the semi-interchangeable nature of his products was good enough to make them more useful than the prior approaches. Half-reshaping for fit is better than full re-shaping. It kept his process running long enough to reach full interchangeability through gradual trial and error.

hugh4life 8y ago

"Fruit harvesting robots are totally feasible, but we have political and economic policies that make it easier to use migrant labor than it is to invest in innovation." While it's true the political and economic sentiment has been against farm automation, we haven't had the technology to make most farm automation tasks feasible until recently and it still has a long ways to go.

alexgmcm 8y ago
Yeah - but the argument is that we don't have the tech because there is no point investing in the research when you can get a load of cheap labour to do it the work instead.

tabtab 8y ago

Businesses often claim there's a "labor shortage" and lobby for overseas workers without changing their practices, such as paying more or allowing longer training curves for hirees that are a close enough match but not an exact match. They did this in agriculture and IT, and the lobbying usually worked. If denied the easy out, companies will change their employment practices and/or automate.

cobbzilla 8y ago

That's quite amazing. It reminds me of a book I read last year, "Kingdom of the Wicked". It presumes an industrial revolution in ancient Rome, around about the time you mention the Aeolipile was invented. The book is set in the first century CE; the Romans have cars, television, and other trappings of industrial life. It's really well written, if you're a history buff you'll chew right through it.