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In Dan Wang’s recent “Breakneck” he makes the case that process knowledge is what really drives technological cultures, not the creation of tools or blueprints.
by ipnon 1y ago
In Dan Wang’s recent “Breakneck” he makes the case that process knowledge is what really drives technological cultures, not the creation of tools or blueprints. He questions whether blueprints of any specificity, sent back to Roman times, would be enough to build something like an automobile or combine.
- WillAdams 1y agoSteam power wasn't feasible until the Bessemer process and rolled sheet steel made the creation of pressure vessels a reliable and repeatable process. An internal combustion engine requires that, plus ceramics and an alloy suited to high temperatures (for the spark plugs) as well as copper or aluminum for wiring. A good book which covers this is: https://goodreads.com/book/show/35068671-the-perfectionists https://goodreads.com/book/show/35068671-the-perfectionists
- noosphr 1y agoSteam power started with atmospheric engines which didn't need steel.
- WillAdams 1y agoNot for anything useful.
- jdietrich 1y agoTo be fair, the atmospheric engine was just barely practical for pumping water out of mines. Newcomen sold over a hundred of them, but they were rapidly replaced by Watt engines or retrofitted with a new cylinder and a separate condenser. The atmospheric engine was however far too inefficient for use as a locomotive engine, or as a replacement for water power in most industrial applications.
- kragen 1y agoWatt engines were also atmospheric engines, but the rest of your comment is correct.
- jdietrich 1y ago>Steam power wasn't feasible until the Bessemer process and rolled sheet steel made the creation of pressure vessels a reliable and repeatable process. Also precision boring to produce tight-fitting cylinders. James Watt spent nearly a decade trying to build a viable steam engine, but only succeeded after John Wilkinson invented a machine to bore cannon barrels in 1774. It turns out that making a hole that is straight, deep and round is fiendishly difficult without specialist equipment and expertise.
- throw0101d 1y ago> Also precision boring to produce tight-fitting cylinders. Which is what the GP's referenced book, The Perfectionists, is all about. There's an entire chapter on Watt and Wilkinson.
- kragen 1y agoYour chronology is backwards. Newcomen's steam-engine, the first commercially successful one, was 01712. James Watt's steam engine was 01776. Trevithick's high-pressure engine patent, which is the point at which steam-engines started needing pressure vessels as opposed to vacuum vessels, was 01802. Trevithick's first steam-powered train was 01804. The Bessemer process was 01856, after the end of the steam-engine-driven First Industrial Revolution. But steel was still not in wide use for pressure vessels until I think about 01880, but I'm less sure of that. Diesel engines are internal combustion engines that do not require spark plugs or wiring. Ceramics are from about 12000 years ago, and copper is from about 8500 years ago. The hard part about wires is more the insulation than the wire itself. Did you get your errors from Winchester's book? I usually think of him as more reliable than that.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoProbably not (and I'm sure the answer is in the book you mention), since those machines rely on decades of material science, chemical science, tooling, precision, etc. That said, some mechanisms can (and have) feasibly been used in e.g. Roman times; the Antikythera mechanism and other such archeological discoveries showed they (or the Greeks) had the skills, materials, ability etc to do cogs, gear ratios, etc. It's not a stretch to put that knowledge to work to e.g. do mass production. Actually they had mechanised sawmills for wood and rock as early as the 3rd century insofar as historians have been able to find evidence thereof, it's not a stretch that they could have built those 500 years prior.