this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago (8 children)

It's not always immediately obvious to what end you can use a new innovation. For instance, the Romans discovered and built a steam engine. But nobody connected the dots that it could be used to power a train.

To me, it showcases the main reason why we need to collaborate. Only together, we can exponentially increase the potential of everything we build.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (5 children)

Herons steam "engine" had no power whatsoever and was not scalable. And even if it would have been scalable, they had had no fuel to drive it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (3 children)

No fuel? All you need is something that makes a fire. And it is not like crude oil wasn't know to people back then.

If the invention had been further explored it is entirely reasonable to assume people could have invented a "practical" steam engine 2.000 years ago. All it would have needed is fixing the steam exhaust and have it drive a shoveled wheel.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Still, going from a stream powered spinning toy to locomotive is a few orders of magnitude. Heron's "engine" was a little jet engine. Heated water pushed it's way out of pipes. It's a far cry from building steam pressure in a tank, using that pressure to drive a crank shaft, and pushing along a vehicle of any kind.

There are a number of industrial era inventions required before you can even start putting something like a train together.

The Romans didn't even have replaceable parts yet. Every nail was custom made.

If you haven't seen it, watch Clickspring's series on the antikithra mechanism. It'll give you an idea of how hard it was to produce complicated machinery was at the time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Also there was no need in Italy and Greece. Britain invented steam engines because they needed a better way to pump water out of their mines, people worked out later that they could use these engines to power a cart, a digging machine, a rail machine. They needed mines for heating fuel due to the cold climate, they needed coal fired heat for their metallurgy

You need reasons to invent stuff (necessity is the mother of invention) and you're not going to get much reason in a perfect climate with all the food you need coming from the sea and land all year

Britain already had rails for human and horse drawn carts

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