It seems so ordinary and simple, but it took early humans a long time to figure out the wheel from what I’ve heard and I can’t understand why.
In: Engineering
Even today, people are more likely to go backpacking, snowshoeing, cross country skiing, dogsledding, canoeing, or use a pack animal, than they are to traverse rough, unmaintained terrain pushing or pulling some kind of non-motorized cart.
Up until recently, things like logging, and moving really heavy objects were also generally done without wheels.
Wheels only offer major advantages under limited circumstances, so many people didn’t have a pressing need to create them, or work on making better versions.
Also, the things that make wheels really good, like steel frames, rims, axles, ball-bearings and pressurized rubber tires all require advanced manufacturing techniques that have only been around for the last 200 years or so.
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