Roman Industrial Revolution?

[5fish]

Here is a video showing the Romans had developed the basic components for a steam engine but never put the parts together. If they had invented the steam engine, we could have had the Industrial Revolution 2000 years sooner. Think of the implications...

 

[5fish]

Here is an article showing the Romans had a society with the social institution to leap into an industrial society...

Could Rome Have Had an Industrial Revolution?

This question is prompted by Kingdom of the Wicked, a new book by Helen Dale. Dale forces us to consider Jesus as a religious extremist in…

medium.com

It was an economy in which inequality was high— the rich were super rich — but even the middling classes or urban poor had access to a wide range of premodern “consumer goods”. Moreover, according to Harper, this was based on market-orientated Smithian growth:

“Peace, law, and transportation infrastructure fostered the capillary penetration of markets everywhere. The clearing of piracy from the Mediterranean in the late Republic may have been the single most critical precondition for the burst of commercial expansion that the Romans witnessed; risk of harm has often been the costliest impediment to seaborne exchange. The umbrella of Roman law further reduced transaction costs. The dependable enforcement of property rights and a shared currency regime encouraged entrepreneurs and merchants . . . Roman banks and networks of commercial credit offered levels of financial intermediation not attained again until the most progressive corners of the seventeenth-eighteenth century global economy. Credit is the lubricant of commerce, and in the Roman empire the gears of trade whirred” (Harper, 2017, p 37

 

[jgoodguy]

Here is a video showing the Romans had developed the basic components for a steam engine but never put the parts together. If they had invented the steam engine, we could have had the Industrial Revolution 2000 years sooner. Think of the implications...

It is backwards, the industrial revolution invented the steam railroad, not the other way around.

 

[jgoodguy]

Here is an article showing the Romans had a society with the social institution to leap into an industrial society...

Could Rome Have Had an Industrial Revolution?

This question is prompted by Kingdom of the Wicked, a new book by Helen Dale. Dale forces us to consider Jesus as a religious extremist in…

medium.com

It was an economy in which inequality was high— the rich were super rich — but even the middling classes or urban poor had access to a wide range of premodern “consumer goods”. Moreover, according to Harper, this was based on market-orientated Smithian growth:

Like the American South, it was hard for machinery to complete with cheap slavery and a class of slaveowners. Rome, IMHO, declined when conquests faltered and the supply of cheap slaves dried up.

 

[rittmeister]

there's one thing the romans didn't have that's crucial for modern life: the 0

 

[jgoodguy]

there's one thing the romans didn't have that's crucial for modern life: the 0

The romans used the abacus for calculation thus eliminating the need for a 0.
However Caffeine is a necessity for an industrial revolution and the Romans did not have that.

 

[rittmeister]

The romans used the abacus for calculation thus eliminating the need for a 0.
However Caffeine is a necessity for an industrial revolution and the Romans did not have that.

you need it for column addition (spreadsheets) and arabic numerals (which are of course indian)

MCMLVII or 1957 (roman numerals are ghastly to work with)

your navy used to say: could we defeat the red fleet without coffee? we think yes but we prefer not to try it

 

[5fish]

your navy used to say: could we defeat the red fleet without coffee? we think yes but we prefer not to try it

What a thought...

 

[5fish]

Caffeine

The Romans had Posca... a drink with water and raw vinegar... If they had just conquered a little further in to eastern Africa

Did The Romans Have Coffee Or Energy Drinks? - The History Ace

Here is the definitive answer to whether or not the Romans had coffee or energy drinks. You might be surprised to know that they did.

thehistoryace.com

Simply put, the average Roman person did not have access to coffee but they did have a substitute. This drink was called posca and it was a mixture of water and raw vinegar. This drink when mixed properly would give the Roman working person and soldier a boost of energy that would resemble a form of an energy drink today. However, Romans did not have access to coffee or caffeine as coffee beans did not grow naturally in their region.

Coffee is believed to have originated as a cultural drink coming out of the western side of the Red Sea. Recent academic reports have uncovered ancient native coffee forests in modern Ethiopia.

The Romans simply did not push far enough into Africa to encounter coffee drinkers. This was because at the peak of Roman expansion under Trajan instead of Rome expanding further, they simply built buffer kingdoms to protect their land.

 

[jgoodguy]

The Abacus: A Brief History

A brief survey of counting boards and abaci from ancient times to the present

www.ecb.torontomu.ca

THE EXCHEQUER
The “exchequer” derives is name from the chequered table which was used in England from c. 1100 for calculating expenditure and receipts.
Exchequer table

“The Exchequer is an oblong board measuring about 10 feet by 5...with a rim around it about four finger breadths in height, to prevent anything set on it from falling off. Over it is spread a cloth, bought in Easter term, with a special pattern, black, ruled with lines a foot, or a full span, apart. In the spaces between them are placed the counters, in their ranks.

The accountant sits in the middle of his side of the table, so that everybody can see him, and so that his hand can move freely at its work. In the lowest space on the right, he places the heap of the pence; in the second the shillings; in the third the pounds…As he reckons, he must put out the counters and state the numbers simultaneously, lest there should be a mistake in the number. When the sum demanded of the sheriff has been set out in heaps of counters, the payments made into the Treasury or otherwise are similarly set out in heaps underneath. The lower line is simply subtracted from the upper.”

—The Dialogue on the Exchequer, 1177.

 

[5fish]

Did not the slide rule get us to the moon? The slide rule, I remember my dad using them...

Oughtred Society Slide Rule History.

Oughtred Society

www.oughtred.org

 

[5fish]

Here is a couple story...

Moon landing: No small step, no giant leap without NJ slide rules

The calculations it took to achieve the Apollo 11 Moon Landing 50 years ago this week were done, largely, on wooden slide rules.

www.northjersey.com

For nearly a century, from 1891 until about 1975, millions of slide rules were cranked out of the Hoboken factories of Keuffel & Esser. One of their factories is now on the National Register of Historic Places, the Clock Tower Apartments on Adams Street in Hoboken.

The power of the slide rule lay in its ability to show relationships between numbers, on several different scales at the same time. It took the tedium out of calculations. A savvy engineer could multiply, divide, find the square and calculate complex logarithms simply by knowing which way to slide that middle piece of wood.

How The Slide Rule Got Us To The Moon

M y father is 66 years old. He grew up in a time that people today tend to easily forget. In reality, it wasn't long ago at all.

medium.com

“We put a man on the moon using only a slide rule. That’s pretty amazing.”

And it’s true. With the technology available at the time, the challenge is almost unimaginable.

In its simplest form, the slide rule adds and subtracts lengths in order to calculate a total distance. But slide rules can also handle multiplication and division, find square roots, and do other sophisticated calculations including solving trigonometric and logarithmic problems.

 

[jgoodguy]

Did not the slide rule get us to the moon? The slide I remember my dad using them...

Oughtred Society Slide Rule History.

Oughtred Society

www.oughtred.org

Big iron did the heavy lifting.

simulations, courses and the like.

There was the miracle called the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer

By the time of the Apollo missions, the slide rule was on the way out. But were carried on Apollo missions and used on occasions especially on Apollo 13. https://airandspace.si.edu/collecti...h-pickett-n600-es-apollo-13/nasm_A19840160000

 

[5fish]

here's one thing the romans didn't have that's crucial for modern life: the 0

If the Romans got the zero maybe they would have gotten the slide rule. Think of the possibilities...

 

[rittmeister]

If the Romans got the zero maybe they would have gotten the slide rule. Think of the possibilities...

if a greek slave on crete 'invented' the zero for the romans they would be conquering your place with their sand galleys (tanks) - read your kirk mitchell, damnit

---

1. procurator (1984)
2. the new barbarians (1986
3. cry republic (1989)

 

[jgoodguy]

If the Romans got the zero maybe they would have gotten the slide rule. Think of the possibilities...

There is a big leap from zero invented 600-800 CE and logarithms needed for slide rules invented in the early 1600s by Kapier 800-1000 years later. Kapier was thousands of miles away from where zero was invented.

Rome would have fallen long before it could put zero to use.

 

[jgoodguy]

if a greek slave on crete 'invented' the zero for the romans they would be conquering your place with their sand galleys (tanks) - read your kirk mitchell, damnit

---

1. procurator (1984)
2. the new barbarians (1986
3. cry republic (1989)

Yes, Rome with zero and sand galleys is a fantasy.

 

[5fish]

There is a big leap from zero invented 600-800 CE and logarithms needed for slide rules invented in the early 1600s by Kapier 800-1000 years later. Kapier was thousands of miles away from where zero was invented.

The Romans needed to quit fighting mine, @O' Be Joyful, @Wehrkraftzersetzer, and @rittmeister ancestors and they could have expanded into Africa and the Arabian peninsula and discovered coffee and now we are talking. With coffee in hand, they could have pushed through the Sasanian Empire and into the Indus Valley and obtained the zero... See Industrial Revolution... I admit a few more dominos have to fall but we have hope... Just think if the Romans had just stayed on their side of the Rhine, they could have had coffee and the zero... and a coffee buzz

 

[jgoodguy]

The Romans needed to quit fighting mine, @O' Be Joyful, @Wehrkraftzersetzer, and @rittmeister ancestors and they could have expanded into Africa and the Arabian peninsula and discovered coffee and now we are talking. With coffee in hand, they could have pushed through the Sasanian Empire and into the Indus Valley and obtained the zero... See Industrial Revolution... I admit a few more dominos have to fall but we have hope... Just think if the Romans had just stayed on their side of the Rhine, they could have had coffee and the zero... and a coffee buzz

Why does everyone leave out a stable Roman government.

 

[5fish]

Why does everyone leave out a stable Roman government.

First, let's say this guy puts the parts together for a Steam engine (10-AD-70AD)

Hero of Alexandria - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It is followed by the Five Good Emperors period... stable government... A 100 years to get it going... start date (96AD)

Nerva–Antonine dynasty - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Nerva–Antonine dynasty comprised seven Roman emperors who ruled from AD 96 to 192: Nerva (96–98), Trajan (98–117), Hadrian (117–138), Antoninus Pius (138–161), Marcus Aurelius (161–180), Lucius Verus (161–169), and Commodus (177–192). The first five of these are commonly known as the "Five Good Emperors".

Which was followed by

Year of the Five Emperors - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

.

The Year of the Five Emperors was AD 193, in which five men claimed the title of Roman emperor: Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Pescennius Niger, Clodius Albinus, and Septimius Severus. This year started a period of civil war when multiple rulers vied for the chance to become emperor.