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This is, unfortunately, a pretty common phenomenon in the history of technological innovation. A few people get the credit for inventing a new technology or coming up with the original idea, but it was actually due to the hard work of hundreds of people.
The famous inventors remembered by history deserve their fame, but it is too bad that all the other people's hard work has vanished into the mists of history.
Fascinating stuff as always. Why do you suppose we didn't get more useful machines earlier? Even something as useful as the Savery pump? Let alone the Newcomen engine?
It would be fantastic to see some estimates of torque and power output from each of these early devices, even very rough ones
Cheers Jason. Yeah, I think estimates of work done could perhaps be estimated, though we don't always have a good idea of the sizes involved - though with something like Drebbel's device, the power itself isn't as important as the fact it moves every few hours.
You already know my usual answer to that "why not earlier" question, even if it doesn't always seem that satisfying, which is that it's all to do with sheer lack of people working on the problem, and that it's a sufficiently hard problem to solve that you do need quite a lot of effort directed towards it.
Yeah, I guess the thing I still sort of wonder about is… why didn't early success motivate more effort? If people could see that a certain type of invention could power a certain type of machinery, and given that there were already a bunch of people interested in inventions, why didn't anyone try for something more *economically* useful? Why so much investment into clocks and astronomical devices?
Maybe it is just a quantitative answer about the level of R&D investment. Would be fascinating to try to extend the Chad Jones model back to 1500…
It’s to do with the height to which the column of air in the atmosphere, pressing upon a column of water, is able to raise the column of water before their weights equalise.
In that spirit, I’m originally from Stoke and my dad is a member of a Facebook group interested in potteries history, just stumbled across your post about Samuel Mores visit to Wedgewood so will post that link to the group and hopefully get you some more subscribers as a thankyou
This is, unfortunately, a pretty common phenomenon in the history of technological innovation. A few people get the credit for inventing a new technology or coming up with the original idea, but it was actually due to the hard work of hundreds of people.
The famous inventors remembered by history deserve their fame, but it is too bad that all the other people's hard work has vanished into the mists of history.
Fascinating stuff as always. Why do you suppose we didn't get more useful machines earlier? Even something as useful as the Savery pump? Let alone the Newcomen engine?
It would be fantastic to see some estimates of torque and power output from each of these early devices, even very rough ones
Cheers Jason. Yeah, I think estimates of work done could perhaps be estimated, though we don't always have a good idea of the sizes involved - though with something like Drebbel's device, the power itself isn't as important as the fact it moves every few hours.
You already know my usual answer to that "why not earlier" question, even if it doesn't always seem that satisfying, which is that it's all to do with sheer lack of people working on the problem, and that it's a sufficiently hard problem to solve that you do need quite a lot of effort directed towards it.
Yeah, I guess the thing I still sort of wonder about is… why didn't early success motivate more effort? If people could see that a certain type of invention could power a certain type of machinery, and given that there were already a bunch of people interested in inventions, why didn't anyone try for something more *economically* useful? Why so much investment into clocks and astronomical devices?
Maybe it is just a quantitative answer about the level of R&D investment. Would be fascinating to try to extend the Chad Jones model back to 1500…
Forgive my ignorance but what is the reason 34 feet seems to be the limit?
I explain in detail here: https://www.ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-invention-why-wasnt-the-steam-76c
It’s to do with the height to which the column of air in the atmosphere, pressing upon a column of water, is able to raise the column of water before their weights equalise.
Having a look now, that’s very kind of you
In that spirit, I’m originally from Stoke and my dad is a member of a Facebook group interested in potteries history, just stumbled across your post about Samuel Mores visit to Wedgewood so will post that link to the group and hopefully get you some more subscribers as a thankyou
Thank you! They sound like my kind of people! Been planning to write more about the Staffordshire ceramic innovators, perhaps in a few months’ time.
Great to look at how innovation on a theme happpens in cycles and builds on top of one another. Lot of parallels for building anything new.