Greeks invent steam engine, and love making complicated machines. Don't make steam engines to power machines.
Later Rome makes a paddle wheel boat with a gear drive powered by ox. Rome is a Greekboo and should have known about the steam engine. No steam ships in the classical age.
The Aeolipile didn't actually produce enough torque to do anything useful.
That said
>tfw Aurelian shut down the Museum of Alexandria
it proved that fire and water could produce work.
if they had just kept at it.
even grecco-roman metallurgy could have produced a usable engine from bronze/brass/crude iron.
No, it couldn't have. Life isn't civ, where you dump resources into the ""science bar"" and level up.
>what is the Manhattan Project
/thread
Scientists working off an existing German program to make a WMD
The greeks didnt need steam, they simply had enough slaves and manpower to do what they wanted. It was cheaper and less complicated.
>building a expensive and complicated machine instead of just getting a bunch of slaves to do that shit
What's wrong with you? You can't even fuck a steam engine.
Technological process isn't a linear progression. Societies develop and change according to their needs. History isn't a video game.
Slaves were cheaper than coal and metal.
tips fedora*
And Creek steam engines were not?
The Industrial Revolution didn't arise out of one or two inventions here and there, it was the product of a huge number of factors that happened to come together in 18th century Britain, including vast resources of coal, the scientific revolution, the patent system, the growth of colonial empires and intercontinental trade, urbanisation, population growth, the agricultural revolution, the free market, self-interested capitalist values, joint-stock companies, and so on. Remember that this wasn't just about a few new technologies, but also a complete transformation of manufacturing processes and the use of labour, the rise of a consumer society, new forms of settlement, etc.
I'm not saying that this was the only possible way an industrial society could have arisen, development isn't a linear thing that can only happen one way and I'm sure some other society could have had a similar revolution for different reasons if Western Europe didn't do it first. What I am saying is that something like a basic Greek steam engine or the Chinese exploiting coal doesn't mean they were on the verge of industrial revolution. I'm not saying an industrial revolution couldn't have happened in these past societies, just that there's no real indication that it was about to happen.
I thought industrialization started in the netherlands then was quickly adopted by the english.
iirc the netherlands was pretty late to the party of industrialization
the greek steam engine was just a whizzaridoo toy thing that spins, they didn't know how to precision engineer the giant pistons and such needed for an economically viable steam engine
Tea is nice, but it isn't really a game changer. Things like patents aren't exactly complex, they are more an effect of the changes taking place that made them necessary. The scientific revolution in the 17th and 18th century I think explains most of it.
Britain just happened to be the best place to start a new business. Because industry and infrastructure was centered there it attracted more and more, becoming the workshop of the world until new technology increased the demand for industry and resources in Britain were strained.
Coffee was a game changer.
It isn't a coincidence that the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution happened when Europe went from alcohol to caffeine.
>from alchohol tu
>from
>to
>implying
before tea and coffee all anyone in europe had to drink was water, milk and booze.
they drank a lot of booze. A lot of watered down beer.
which means everyone was killing brain cells and running on a depressant.
then fucking CAFFEINE! HOLY SHIT HANS! THIS IS THE BEST STUFF IN THE WORLD. I'M GOING TO RUN HOME AND DO MATH ALL FUCKING NIGHT! WOOOOOOOOO
>A lot of watered down beer.
This is a myth, people drank water from a variety of fresh sources and usually didn't water down alcohol, which they would have drank relatively rarely.
Source:
Misconceptions about the Middle Ages, by Harris and Grigsby
why didn't greeks just invent microscopes so they could discover the microbial origin of diseases and not die?
cause they were fuckin STUPID lol
i'm talking recreational drinking.
introduction of coffee houses and tea shops gave people with money places to gather and talk. while getting buzzed instead of tipsy or drunk.
optical glass is very difficult to make.
Bavaria had the monopoly on it and treated it like a state secret.
I thought the first microscope was made by a dutchman?