I will be deleting this post in a short while, but I wanted to be sure that everyone was aware that if it weren’t for the hard work and determination of one:
/u/JohnnyCanuck
-this error in historical accuracy would have been forced upon millions of lemmy users.
So, as a result of their firm belief that all showerthoughts must be historically accurate and factually correct, as mentioned, it will be removed.
One can only shudder to think on the devastation caused by such a glaring oversight…
The consequences would be devastating.
I’ve enjoyed both sides of the conversation you’ve been having with XeroxCool.
But here, here’s an “alternate tech tree”.
Take aeliopile.
Scale it up a bit, make it out of a bit stronger alloy.
… Fire it with a bellows, or a kiln.
Alexandria? ~40AD?
The Romans were making a crude form of steel for swords.
I think you can fairly easily get that rpm and torque up.
Oh, but the joints, the rotation points will heat up! It will deform!
So have some dudes dousing it with a mixture of olive oil and water fairly regularly.
Shit, set up a plumbing system, do it with the dudes turning Archimedes screws.
… this is the civilization that had construction cranes, invented a self healing form of cement that we literally only figured out the actual recipe for within the last few years.
I think its entirely plausible that if somebody had just managed to nudge this spinning screaming ball just a bit conceptually further, it could have snowballed.