eli5: why wasn’t there an Industrial Revolution at an earlier point in time?

Question

Was it a lack of manpower? Was it geographic circumstances? Why couldn’t civilizations like, say, Babylon or Rome have an Industrial Revolution?

In: 448

Answer 1

The Miner’s Friend; or, An Engine to Raise Water by Fire, was the first significant step of the Industrial Revolution, and it dates to the end of the 1600s. And that was when the inventor, Savery, received a patent on it. i do think the patent mattered, as it did drive further refinement and created an incentive for inventers and tinkerers.

However, the early pump was very inefficient, and the solders on the metal were not able to handle high pressure. It was primarily a tool for dewatering flooded mines.

So…to be needed and practical, you needed metallurgy advanced enough to actual hold substantial pressure.

You also neeeded to pump flooded mines! In the Roman times, if mines flooded, they would be pumped with human labor from slaves using an Archimedes screw or through water wheels.

The mines in Cornwall with the first steam pump didn’t have any nearby river sources to run for a wheel and no one was going to build an aqueduct to them to help run a wheel.

So if asked “would you like an engine to raise water by fire” to a Roman or Babylonian, they’d generally just say “no, we’ll use water power to turn a wheel and do work with that…or we’ll use a bunch of slaves to do work.”

I’d also note that a Spainard, Jerónimo de Ayan y Beaumont, developed a similar engine almost 100 years earlier to help dewater mines in Spain. He invented a host of interesting things – but unlike Savery in England, didn’t enter into a partnership with someone *better* to improve and commercialize the invention. So things fizzled out in Spain because one genius thought up the product and then it kind of died with him.

So to sum up, you needed the technology to be far enough along. You needed a reason to use an “engine.” You needed there to be a commercial demand. And you needed to have someone who could improve the engine. And then you needed a steam engine company that profited off the use of the steam engine and helped drive the further use and refinement of the invention.