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Not to mention the significant amount of technical innovation that had already happened in the Middle Ages. To make a good engine, you need to be able to bore c

Not to mention the significant amount of technical innovation that had already happened in the Middle Ages. To make a good engine, you need to be able to bore cylinders accurately, which depended on cannons having been manufactured and improved upon for centuries.

timschmidt 2y ago
Lathes are older than recorded history. The Antikythera mechanism required a lathe for it's construction. Romans clearly had access to metalworking capabilities sophisticated enough for clock making. Engines wouldn't be a huge stretch.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Romans clearly had access to metalworking capabilities sophisticated enough for clock making. Engines wouldn't be a huge stretch. You're vastly underestimating the complexity of making pressure vessels.
  - timschmidt 2y ago
    I don't think so. Using the Antikythera mechanism as a basis for metalworking ability possible at the time, brass is a suitable material with many small brass engines of various types seen on youtube. The Antikythera mechanism demonstrates high quality bushings and axles, complex gear trains, precision flat surfaces, and soldering. Everything you'd need, just applied differently.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > with many small brass engines of various types seen on youtube Fair enough. The problem is more that "the Romans had put functionally no effort into figuring out how to make efficient pressure-cylinders, because they had absolutely no use for them." The author mentions the Romans couldn’t have built [a Newcomen steam engine] without developing whole new technologies for the purpose (or casting every part in bronze, which introduces its own problems)" without expanding on those problems. Presumably it would be material cost of bronze (or brass) relative to "any profitable use to put it to." So yes, the Romans technically could have figured out pressure vessels. But they had no need to, and so didn't go through the process of refining their materials and methods for the purpose.

timschmidt 2y ago

Lathes are older than recorded history. The Antikythera mechanism required a lathe for it's construction. Romans clearly had access to metalworking capabilities sophisticated enough for clock making. Engines wouldn't be a huge stretch.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Romans clearly had access to metalworking capabilities sophisticated enough for clock making. Engines wouldn't be a huge stretch. You're vastly underestimating the complexity of making pressure vessels.
- timschmidt 2y ago
  I don't think so. Using the Antikythera mechanism as a basis for metalworking ability possible at the time, brass is a suitable material with many small brass engines of various types seen on youtube. The Antikythera mechanism demonstrates high quality bushings and axles, complex gear trains, precision flat surfaces, and soldering. Everything you'd need, just applied differently.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > with many small brass engines of various types seen on youtube Fair enough. The problem is more that "the Romans had put functionally no effort into figuring out how to make efficient pressure-cylinders, because they had absolutely no use for them." The author mentions the Romans couldn’t have built [a Newcomen steam engine] without developing whole new technologies for the purpose (or casting every part in bronze, which introduces its own problems)" without expanding on those problems. Presumably it would be material cost of bronze (or brass) relative to "any profitable use to put it to." So yes, the Romans technically could have figured out pressure vessels. But they had no need to, and so didn't go through the process of refining their materials and methods for the purpose.