I feel like there is a lot of emphasis on the invention of the wheel or is that just me? Why was it so revolutionary?
In: Engineering
Without a wheel, you had to drag, or carry, everything (or bully an animal or slave into doing it for you).
A wheel supports the load continuously at the same height. (Square wheels don’t work too well because the corners mean the axle height varies.) And the friction is concentrated in only a small area, which can be lubricated with animal fat.
Exception: what was so important about the boat? Also a low-friction technique, but limited by needing a lake or river on all convenient routes, and you are screwed by waterfalls, and fast flows, and freezing weather.
Notably, a wheel rotates, so it is literally revolutionary. But originally, “revolutionary” referred to Galileo’s assertion that the Earth moved around the Sun, instead of being the centre of the universe.
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