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Steam engines and other technologies simply had no hope of happening on a large scale until materials science, including metallurgy and chemistry, had caught up
by Salgat 4y ago
Steam engines and other technologies simply had no hope of happening on a large scale until materials science, including metallurgy and chemistry, had caught up, and that wasn't going to happen for a very long time regardless.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoNewcomen steam engines did not depend on any metallurgy, chemistry or material science the Romans didn't have. These are low pressure steam engines; the work is done by atmospheric pressure when the steam is condensed. They can be built with a copper boiler and a hand-finished cast brass cylinder with leather piston seals. The Romans could do all of this, but nobody had the idea. And it's the sort of idea that doesn't just spring into somebody's head out of the blue, Newcomen was applying principles and ideas other people came up with first (story of the entire industrial revolution.)
- mcguire 4y agoAdditionally, "If you had given the Romans the designs for a Newcomen steam engine, they [...] wouldn’t have had any profitable use to put it to."
- MichaelCollins 4y agoIf they did see the utility, they might have simply killed you for threatening the pack animal / slave industries.