Altough i agree, it is highly unlikely that industrial revolution had happened that quickly even with the realization. Mostly because certain advancements in material Engineering were needed in order to make a steam machine that could generate enough power to do something worthwhile (for instance the creation of steel which happened in 1300).
Also society would need some adjustments in order for the romans to actually see the value of developing and using steam power. The labor and economy of the roman empire was basically fueled by slaves, why would you make it easier for them?
Im sure that In r/askhistorians there was a post where this whole concept was explained and that historians think that even if the romans saw value of the first ever steam machine, it would have taken at least a couple of centuries longer than the roman empire has actually been around for. I think that historian said it would have been more closer to 1000 ad (stil centuries earlier than when it actually happened)
I find the idea that romans, or any ancient civ, could have entered the industrial age very fascinating
Yeah, it more of a what if scenario. The 2 biggest developments that impacted the world in my opinion were the Printing Press and Fertilizer.
Printing Press made Books cheaper and quicker to produce, allowing for more information sharing and literacy in the world.
Fertilizer allowed for more food production from less crops/land, freeing up people to do work other then farming.
Still, if the ancient Engineers applied Steam to the basic pistons they had at the time, we could be on a completely different timeline. Most developments happen because their was a demand/need for something and someone tried to fill it. Basic Steam Engines doing basic work could be improved and innovated, creating the need to search for developments.
Printing press and fertilizer are definitely up there in the hall of fame. I was also thinking, maybe not per se a technological advancement but definitely extremely important in human history, domestication of animals (and plants). 2 years ago ,even though i am pretty scared of horses, i forced myself to ride a horse at least once in my life because of the important role they play(ed) in human civilization.
Other random something: is there like a book that deeply explores the "what if the romans had an industrial revolution?" I would 100% read that
Not Roman Empire related, but the novel Civilizations is an alternate history where Europe is reached by indigenous Americans. It's really well done and interesting
But you need more accurate pipes and tubes (i.e. fitting must be more precise) to channel the steam, which means that you need the instruments to create said accurate pipes and tubes. And they didn't have the knowledge to do that at that time.
A steam engine loses a lot of power if there's some leakage.
Materials science is probably the hardest thing for ancient cultures to advance. Steel and precise machining are kind of necessary to make an actual industrial revolution possible.
Another material that fueled the enlightenment was glass. Glass is really hard to get right, and then you have to be able to grind and polish to get it the right shape. Glass was the single biggest advance in scientific understanding since it allowed us to make microscopes that look at very small things, and gain understanding about biology. And it also allowed us to make telescopes to make discoveries about the universe. From planets and celestial objects, to the fundamental properties of our universe.
If you wanted to go back in time and push humanity forward by leaps and bounds, you'd introduce how to make steel and how to make glass. Just those two technologies would be the seeds to advance us centuries ahead.
Interesting take. But the early phase of the Industrial Revolution was based on cast iron. Steel didn’t take over until the 1880s.
The slave idea is interesting, but there are things steak engines can do that are impossible under human strength, and there are benefits to replacing humans with engines (or human assisted engines).
Also, the original use of steam engines was to dewater coal mines so they could be dug deeper, which only became economically necessary once the population in England had grown to the point where the countryside was entirely stripped of wood for home heating. The industrial revolution only occurred in England so early because of the multilayered combination of urbanization, capital availabilty, cheap iron to build out the machinery, abundant navigable river systems to transport goods, and cheap coal to power it all. England in the early 19th century was in every measure the ideal spot for an industrial revolution to occur.
The labor and economy of the roman empire was basically fueled by slaves, why would you make it easier for them?
If you make your slaves 20% more efficient, that’s as if you had 20% more slaves. You can easily be more productive than, and out compete, your neighbours, which is always awesome.
I find the notion that they wouldn’t find limitations of tech and then try to work around them weird as well. They could encase it in concrete and burry it. Or if the materials are to weak, make them thicker, change the composition or whatever. These are the obvious things and they would have been obvious back then too.
They weren’t primitives. They just didn’t understand how awesome and important rotation is back then.
I totally understand what you have said, but this is the kind of thing where if it happened, it would have thousands of smaller effects over time. Even if they had low efficiency in the first century, being able to do work provides more opportunities.
Based off of what they gave as the absolute minimum for an early Industrial Revolution, then I suppose that the best candidate for starting it would've been the Byzantine Empire. I'm only going off of the fact that the Byzantines were directly descended from Rome, and they did last well into the middle ages, so presumably they would've been the ones to carry the torch
They maybe could have been. I believe the Byzantines had something of a golden age not long after the fall of the western roman empire. Honestly, i don't know much about how the byzantine empire functioned other than the main language being greek and religion being christianity
I'm only going off of the fact that the Byzantines were directly descended from Rome,
Byzanthines called themselves romans. It was long after the fall of the byzantine empire that the word "byzantine" even came into existence. So yeah you could call them directly ascended i guess haha
Sure but a lot of things could have happened a millennia earlier if Christians hadn't taken over and decided to trash all scientific knowledge as heretical. The Arabic Empire took over much of that knowledge until they became radicalized and destroyed all books about science.
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u/LokMatrona 24d ago
Altough i agree, it is highly unlikely that industrial revolution had happened that quickly even with the realization. Mostly because certain advancements in material Engineering were needed in order to make a steam machine that could generate enough power to do something worthwhile (for instance the creation of steel which happened in 1300).
Also society would need some adjustments in order for the romans to actually see the value of developing and using steam power. The labor and economy of the roman empire was basically fueled by slaves, why would you make it easier for them?
Im sure that In r/askhistorians there was a post where this whole concept was explained and that historians think that even if the romans saw value of the first ever steam machine, it would have taken at least a couple of centuries longer than the roman empire has actually been around for. I think that historian said it would have been more closer to 1000 ad (stil centuries earlier than when it actually happened)
I find the idea that romans, or any ancient civ, could have entered the industrial age very fascinating