So, who invented the Satellite then? What about the steam engine? The helicopter?
Sometimes the inventors are so far ahead of their time that the materials science first has to catch up (in some cases only a few millenia) before they can realize their devices. Effectively it is then the first person after whoever did the materials science part to create the device that gets to claim the invention.
So we get Sikorski, and not Da Vinci.
We get Arthur C. Clarke who claims the 'communications satellite' even though the moon was there all along and the Sputnik was the first working very crude device (it was one way only, it said 'you lost the space race' in a single bit of message).
We get Newcomen, Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont (I had to look that up, I can never remember the man's full name), and Hero of Alexandria competing for the steam engine title, with all of them holding some part of the credit.
Pointing at an inventor is hard, and 'who built the first working device' is one way of doing this but it assumes a singular effort whereas most things are team efforts and misses the bit that the idea itself can be an instrumental step in getting your 'true' inventor to make their claim, standing on the shoulders of the giants before them. In isolation, we all probably would invent the hammer in our lifetimes, if that.
> Newcomen, Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont ... and Hero of Alexandria
Thomas Savery too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Savery
>> Newcomen, Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont ... and Hero of Alexandria
> Thomas Savery too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Savery
Savery is referenced in the "Watt steam engine" Wikipedia article.
Also worth noting that even though Watt improved on Newcomen's design to improve efficiency, Watt's design still sucked: it took Wilkinson's boring technology to actually get them to work well.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkinson_(industrialist)...
People underestimate how much improving precision over the years/decades/centuries has allowed technology to progress:
* https://www.simonwinchester.com/precision-praise
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068671-the-perfectioni...
Ah yes, and a better claim than some (there are quite a few more).
I always wondered what the effect of these in absolute time is. Consider: if someone had come up with a viable steam engine in the year 1000 or so, how would that have change the course of history?
I remember reading an analysis of that a while back but I can't remember where I saw it. The upshot was that the industrial revolution turned on more than just innovation, it also required just the right combination of natural resources (coal) and economic conditionsL deforestation in England driving the use of coal for heat, which drove mining, which drove the need for pumps, which made Savery's engine economically viable. Before that steam power would not have found an application.
Also, the piston and cylinder (which came later) were derived from canon-making technology, so that had to come first too.
Probably https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus... HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32607187 (509 points | Aug 2022 | 519 comments)
Yes, that was it! Thank you! How did you know?
Usually "Roman"+"Good post" or "Medieval European"+"Good" can be replaced by "acoup"+"I'm feeling lucky".
PS 1: If you can remember how to spell "acoup", it's the harder part.
PS 2: IIRC he only (mostly?) post about those topics, not about random old stuff, because it's his expertise area.
I remembered the same article too, I'm sure I could have found it again knowing it was listed on HN and/or recalling the wording. Good article too, going in depth on steam engines - the first ones were so inefficient they had to be really close to a really cheap source of fuel and be useful.
> t also required just the right combination of natural resources (coal) and economic conditionsL deforestation
This argument is repeated often, but I don't think it's really true. Both Savery and Newcomen's engines were initially aimed at evacuating flooded metal mines and not coal mines.
Source? Because Wikipedia says:
"A few Savery pumps were tried in mines, an unsuccessful attempt being made to use one to clear water from a pool called Broad Waters in Wednesbury (then in Staffordshire) and nearby coal mines."