[skunkworker]

Every time I think about the Antikythera mechanism the quote by Arthur C. Clarke comes to mind

"If the insight of the Greeks had matched their ingenuity…we would not merely be puttering around on the Moon, we would have reached the nearer stars."

It's a little sensational but also makes me think of what could've been, if certain paths had been realized in past times, and also makes me put the technical knowledge of past civilizations in much higher regard.

[dougmwne]

This realization hit me after spending a few weeks in Italy seeing the remains of the Roman Empire. I had a building sense that they were awfully close to the industrial revolution, that there was no particular reason it couldn’t have happened thousands of years ago in the face of a highly organized, long lived, innovative empire with enormous resources. I think it’s an accident of history that it happened in England instead.

[marcosdumay]

They had nothing like the Modern age's science. I can't imagine any reason for it not appearing there given enough time, but they didn't have the dispassionate questioning of every theory and total submission to empiricism that are fundamental to science today.

Math advanced a huge amount during the Medieval age. They simply didn't have good tools for calculations, and nearly all of the Modern Age's math was based on questions that they didn't even consider to ask by then.

There were huge advances on material handling during the Medieval and Modern ages. Not only the obvious ones on metallurgy, but on glass working and ceramics too. All of those were important.

And let's not underestimate the individuals. Had Newton not been born, our Industrial Revolution could be delayed for many decades too. Anyway, it's no accident that when he appeared, he was at England, there was basically no other place on the world where somebody like him could do what he did.

[xyzzyz]

You are giving way too much credit to science in the early phase of industrial revolution. Science has been extremely important in technological development from late 1800s onwards, but the most critical leaps of late 1700s and early 1800s had little to do with Newton-style science. Instead, they mostly about engineering improvements, combined with a newly widespread social attitude that technology actually can be significantly improved. Flying shuttle has not been based on some theoretical scientific model, but rather on experience with making looms and ingenuity in improving them. Similarly, Watt didn’t create his engine based on theory of thermodynamics, instead he just observed that repeatedly heating and cooling the cylinder is wasteful, and came up with a technique to avoid that.

If you follow the development Industrial Revolution, you’ll see that it’s mostly thanks to ingenious engineers, not smart scientists. The scientists did occasionally deliver something valuable, often in fact paradigm-changing, but importantly, this only became very relevant around the turn of 20th century.

[krallja]

> The scientists did occasionally deliver something valuable, often in fact paradigm-changing, but importantly, this only became very relevant around the turn of 20th century.

James Watt was only able to build efficient steam engines because Joseph Black discovered latent heat in 1761. Without steam engines, there’s no industrial revolution.

[xyzzyz]

> James Watt was only able to build efficient steam engines because Joseph Black discovered latent heat in 1761.

No, in fact both Black and Watt explicitly claimed that their research and results were independent.

[shakna]

Whilst Hero's aeolipile is incredibly wasteful, the ancient world did have the right conceptual basis for steam engines to have developed.

[andrewjl]

Any good references you'd recommend for learning more about this?

I read about Oliver Heaviside and that helped shed some light on engineering improvements from that period of time. He was around a bit later in the 1800s, though.

[marcosdumay]

Having forces defined as a quantifiable concept that you can easily predict is quite important for tooling and creating reproducible machines. The Mechanics is quite important for mechanical engineering.

Yes, those engineers were inventing most things by themselves, but they didn't work in a vacuum.

[toomanydoubts]

I find interesting that Archimedes came so, so close to calculus millenniums before Newton. I wonder how things would've panned out had him had the mathematical tools to formalize calculus.

[Vetch]

You're correct that Archimedes presaged core concepts of calculus: in his work building upon the method of exhaustion, quadrature for certain conic sections and tangent of a spiral. It's nonetheless quite a ways up the tech-tree from calculus. Important developments were also contributed by al-Tūsī in the 12th century and Kerala school mathematicians (Indian, prominently around 14th century, though their broader influence is uncertain).

As advanced as Ancient Greek mathematics was, its heavy emphasis on geometric formulations made many developments more difficult. The Hindu-Arabic numeral system, algebra, invention of a zero number concept (Cardan's proof of the cubic and quartic would have gone significantly easier if he had utilized zero as a number) and Descartes's Analytic geometry were important developments on the way to calculus. By the time of Barrow's and Fermat's contributions, nearly all essential components of calculus existed, just requiring some genius to grab, synthesize and streamline them.

[marcosdumay]

It's interesting that calculus was independently invented 3 times nearly simultaneously (AFAIK there's a lesser known one). Yet, I don't know any reason for it not to be invented 3 centuries earlier.

[topper-123]

A fun alternative time line to think about would be if the romans had progressed, had depleted all coal and oil resources, leaving us today in a postapocalyptic wasteland, having the knowledge how to build an advanced society, but lacking the ressources…

[elihu]

Presumably it would have happened more slowly, as the world population was less then. Though, maybe that wouldn't have actually made that much difference, as the rapid population growth of the last few hundred years is probably largely the result of technological progress (specifically, increases in farm output and modern medical technology). If there had been a population boom during the Roman empire, they might have been able to consume the world's fossil fuel resources pretty quickly, and with predictable results.

[dougmwne]

I would read that book.

[nitrogen]

Anathem by Neal Stephenson has some of that vibe. If you haven't read it, I'd recommend reading it without even glancing at the Wikipedia page or plot synopses to avoid conceptual spoilers.

[psd1]

It doesn't have tone in common with post-apocalyptic fiction. I'd call it "alternative future", not that it's easy to pigeonhole!

It absolutely is germane to this conversation and thanks for reminding me of it.

I think HN would enjoy it very much. It's an astonishing novel. Read it!

[dflock]

"A mote in god's eye", by Niven & Pournelle covers a very similar setup, although not on earth. It's also quite good.

[Baeocystin]

Not an accident. Energy. Rome as a meta-organism was limited by available energy- trees weren't enough, and denudation of forests was already a limiting factor. Meanwhile, Britain had plentiful coal in easily-accessible abundance. No point in developing steam and a theory of thermodynamics when you can't use the results.

[sideshowb]

I thought denudation of forest was a limiting factor in the UK too, indeed a motivating factor for https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Darby_I

[Baeocystin]

It absolutely was. It has been everywhere! The difference being that the UK had coal to fill the need.

[wbl]

Italy does have some coal and Rome at one point had the coal seams of the UK.

[Baeocystin]

Yup. The Romans in Britain did use coal for their hypocausts. But too far away, too little, too late for the Empire at large.

[svachalek]

Check out some of the research on how the terra cotta army in Xi'an was produced. There were some very modern (20th century) mass production techniques in place. It's pretty fascinating to see how differently history could have gone.

[peter303]

These were slave societies. Buckminster Fuller enunciated the concept of 'energy slaves', that is each modern person vampires off the energy of certain number of fossil fuel human equivalents. One calculation in the Wikipedia article has 400 energy slaves backing each developed world resident. The most most slave-ridden ancient societies never exceeded 10:1, with most like 3:1. Social progress would need to go in hand with technological progress.

[cwkoss]

What were the main factors that prevented the roman empire from having an industrial revolution?

Is there a single technology, that if sent back in time, would have sustained their empire? (Steam engine? Hydropower improvements? Standardized measurements for tighter tolerances?)

[Kalium]

I've seen the argument made that the major factor was slavery. In general, they had a cheap source of unskilled labor. Major advances in industrialization were often driven, in no small part, by high labor costs.

[usrusr]

I see a strong counter-argument in their advanced knowledge (and industrial-scale use) of hydro power. Are you familiar with the Barbegal mills?

What I think could have been a considerable factor that is rarely discussed is how "cosmopolitan" power structures appear in the late empire: someone makes an exceptional military career, gathers loyalty in the legions currently stationed in whatever corner of the empire he happens to serve, a few years later he's one of the contenders for emperor in the next civil war. But the economic development of the regions the "players" are associated with (if they even are associated with some specific region) doesn't seem to be a factor at all in that game.

A few centuries later feudalism and successors had military power (and with it political power) tied much closer to actual land and its economic power. This certainly did not directly lead to politics trying to foster industrial progress, but I can easily imagine how one form of stability (some hierarchy of lords stable for generations) could set up the prerequisites in a way the other form of stability (one seemingly eternal super-state but in an endless state of internal strife as the only form of meaningful achievement) would not.

[lovemenot]

The British Empire too had relied on slavery until well into the nineteenth century. By which time the Industrial Revolution was already underway.

[JetSetWilly]

There were some significant differences. For one thing, slavery was not legal within Britain itself, which is where the industrial revolution occurred. While no doubt slavery abroad meant that some luxury goods like sugar or tobacco were cheaper than they otherwise have been, there weren't slaves working the fields to make food and weave clothes in Britain itself.

There's a whole lot of research to show that the cost of labour in Britain in the 18th century was far higher than that of continental Europe - several times higher. And that this high cost of labour is what spurred on innovation.

[SapporoChris]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution#Requirem...

I found this a fascinating read. Below that section is a list of technological developments.

[cwkoss]

Interesting.

"natural resources such as [...] waterfalls"?

Is this a typo? Or is it talking about small waterfalls for hydro power?

--

Which of those six factors was the roman empire lacking? I feel like they could have had all six, but I don't know much about roman history.

[bryanrasmussen]

L. Sprague De Camp had the same opinion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lest_Darkness_Fall

[bsenftner]

Although other books claim the title today, for a few decades "Lest Darkness Fall" was considered the first distinctly science fiction novel.

[thewarrior]

They did not have the printing press or free markets. The combination of the wider dissemination of ways of knowing and acting in a free market of ideas combined with a free market of individuals and firms that applied the knowledge is what set it all off.

The ancient Greeks had a steam engine. There were no mass printed books so barely anyone knew about it. Even if you knew you couldn’t exactly start a company.

[billiam]

Priority was given to running an empire, which didn't require too much mechanical ingenuity, just political ingenuity.

[me_me_mu_mu]

Really dumb question, but one I must ask after reading this article and then your post. Could it be possible that humans had some pretty awesome technology even farther in the past than we know (beyond earliest recorded history), but due to some extinction event all records of society from that time were wiped out?

For example if we had some crazy extinction event, the dark ages that would follow are pretty scary to think about. I would feel like the researchers trying to understand what I'm looking at, and they mention there's some sort of user manual inscription. If we are reduced to small tribes again, with no access to internet, electricity, running water, etc. I can't imagine us actually recovering to the current state without thousands of years. Most people have no idea how anything works, we just buy it on amazon and it arrives tomorrow or stream the latest movie. Just thought I'd throw my dumb question out there lol.

[xenadu02]

We can be reasonably certain there were no such civilizations on Earth prior to modern human history, otherwise we'd see evidence in the archeological record or even fossil record. I don't mean finding silicon chips in a fossil or anything so advanced. I mean very simple things like ceramic chips or bits of worked glass that would survive for millions of years.

The only way a civilization at least as advanced as bronze-age humans existed 100k+ years ago is if it was visitors from a parent civilization on another world that died out. That's the only way you get advanced technology on a small enough scale that we wouldn't be able to find any clues because the clues would be localized to a tiny area we just haven't stumbled across yet (to be clear I don't think any such civilization ever existed).

[w0de0]

> archeological record or even fossil record

The Earth may (I think it likely) have been tectonically active for long enough to destroy any such traces of an advanced civilization arising during its first couple eons (oldest macro-fossil: 800m years; Earth: 4.5b years).

Better disproof is perhaps the absence of evidence in the geologic/atmospheric record. One imagines that a geologist in the deep future could detect a long-forgotten humanity via the record's abrupt spike in CO2 output, just as present geologists know of the Great Oxidation Event.

[decebalus1]

No at all a dumb question :) It's actually a fascinating question!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silurian_hypothesis

[badlukk]

Look into Graham Hancock, he writes a lot about possible lost civilizations. He gets lots of hate and I have no idea if any of it is true, but super fun to read.

[radu_floricica]

What'll really bake your noodle is the fact that we most likely couldn't tell if there was a pre-human civilization on earth, even around industrial levels. What we have now will easily last a thousand years - but not a thousand thousands years.

And my favorite hypothesis: Antarctica. If there ever was a species which flourished there, it's a lot harder for them to colonize the rest of the world than it is for us to visit Antarctica. Clothes you can just wear, and heating is pretty straightforward - but having to venture in a place where portable aircon failure means death will pretty much guarantee you don't build a lot far from home. Which puts a pretty high limit on how far a civilization could have gotten there and still have all traces hidden in the ice.

[creato]

I doubt this is really true. We've identified many traces of life from millions of years ago. You don't think we could find some bricks or beams from an industrial civilization?

[kromem]

Their insight was great as well.

Most people today are familiar with Aristotle and Plato because the early Christian church embraced Neoplatonism's "perfect design" - but there was a very popular school of philosophy frequently overlooked because it was declared heretical.

The Epicureans not only were the first we know of in history to theorize that light was made up of tiny quantized parts moving quickly (the experiment showing this is what Einstein won his Nobel Prize for), they also thought the reason life existed was that out of chaos there were a great many worlds out in the void many which didn't have life at all and we just happened to be on a world with life.

They even thought that the first living creatures didn't have any senses at all, and through intermediary "freaks" eventually beings like us came to exist.

So there were ancient minds pondering quantized light, the anthropic principle, and evolution.

They just didn't have any ways to demonstrate who was actually right, and the group that eventually seized power declared much of what ended up being correct heretical and banned it.

They had BOTH insight and ingenuity. What they didn't have was the security or indispensability to protect those qualities from the masses who had neither.

[imoverclocked]

I find it to be a good reminder that whatever complexity we have managed to create today likely won't last for 1000s or even 100s of years. We initially didn't believe that precision gears were possible for the time period this device comes from.

Sometimes I think about how I might present a progression from electricity and transistors to fully functional computers for a future society that somehow lost the knowledge. Most of our computing devices won't last 100 years. The ones that do might be older equipment with a little more "silicon redundancy" or even materials that are more resistant to corrosion... if they aren't mined for it first. Given that we store almost all of our current knowledge in electronic form, corroding/losing the ability to retrieve it will likely mean the end of the art.

[ahonhn]

The ancients called this device a "Nokia 3310". While it looks a lot like our newest Fartalkers this is almost certainly mere coincidence. The idea ancient humans had developed anything like unwired-electromagnetics is laughable. More likely the object served some religious purpose though we can only speculate on the type of ceremonies it may have been used in.

[imoverclocked]

There is recent evidence that as the end of the civilization drew nearer, the ancients fruitlessly increased the frequency and duration with which they performed these ceremonies. When coupled with geologic records, it's likely that famine and increasing tide levels had something to do with the increase of these ceremonies.

[kej]

You comment reminds me of one of my favorite short stories, Harry Turtledove's "The Road Not Taken": https://eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf

[Cody_C]

Honestly, one of the biggest missteps we have had in the last 100 years is stopping the Apollo program. We would have probably been on Mars in the 80's and reaching out past that by now for sure. In general, I think a lot of people have lost their sense of curiosity and wonder, that need for adventure and discovery.