In this particular article, we're looking at the window between ~1640 and ~1690. A fifty year interval is a pretty long time in human terms. But it is fairly na

In this particular article, we're looking at the window between ~1640 and ~1690. A fifty year interval is a pretty long time in human terms. But it is fairly narrow in technological terms. Steel production did not change significantly during that time. I still, without evidence, cling to the notion that external technologies (like advances in precision engineering) held things up, but the article makes a very compelling argument that this is not the case, and that it really was a question of having an individual inventive and ambitious and persistent enough to really attempt to reduce to practice the concepts that were floating around at the time.