this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
1 points (100.0% liked)

Science Memes

15222 readers
115 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Kornblumenratte@feddit.org 0 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Herons steam "engine" had no power whatsoever and was not scalable. And even if it would have been scalable, they had had no fuel to drive it.

[–] Saleh@feddit.org 0 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

No fuel? All you need is something that makes a fire. And it is not like crude oil wasn't know to people back then.

If the invention had been further explored it is entirely reasonable to assume people could have invented a "practical" steam engine 2.000 years ago. All it would have needed is fixing the steam exhaust and have it drive a shoveled wheel.

[–] SippyCup@feddit.nl 0 points 18 hours ago

Still, going from a stream powered spinning toy to locomotive is a few orders of magnitude. Heron's "engine" was a little jet engine. Heated water pushed it's way out of pipes. It's a far cry from building steam pressure in a tank, using that pressure to drive a crank shaft, and pushing along a vehicle of any kind.

There are a number of industrial era inventions required before you can even start putting something like a train together.

The Romans didn't even have replaceable parts yet. Every nail was custom made.

If you haven't seen it, watch Clickspring's series on the antikithra mechanism. It'll give you an idea of how hard it was to produce complicated machinery was at the time.