Last week I walked into a Starbucks, I hadn't since the pandemic began. Sitting on my left was a gay couple planning a trip to Mykonos and on my right two Gothic teenagers, characterized as vampires, were handling their phones with slow movements. The rest of the clients were young Chinese students who worked with their computers as if the exam were tomorrow. I couldn't help laughing and the Gothics looked at me with disapproval. This is the future of the sixties, only Heinlein and Orwell were right.
Star Wars, Star Trek and other Sci-Fi
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Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Exactly what I'm talking about. Massive, inefficient machinery, capable only of performing parlor tricks. There are cheaper ways to open the door, you know.
Heron's work with steam power resulted in interesting but impractical toys it's true. Turning one of his steam engines into something that could power a ship would probably be a project that would be beyond the technical ability of his time. But unfortunately, his people simply gave up trying. And for a millenium and a half work on steam power simply didn't happen. What might have happened had some wise King or rich merchant taken a look at the impractical toys and realized the potential, and funded a decades-long effort to develop something practical from them? This was an era when such people thought nothing of construction projects that would consume many years and many lives; a generations-long effort to turn the aeoliplie into a practical steam engine seems not unreasonable.
As in actual history, the first fruits of such an effort might have been to use the steam engine to run water pumps rather than propel trains, carts or ships. Perhaps the pump would remove water from mines... or perhaps it would spray Greek Fire a considerable distance.
The ability of the profit motive to spur innovation and advancement should not be discounted. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to look at the aeolipile and realize the true potential.
As in actual history, the first fruits of such an effort might have been to use the steam engine to run water pumps rather than propel trains, carts or ships. Perhaps the pump would remove water from mines... or perhaps it would spray Greek Fire a considerable distance.
The ability of the profit motive to spur innovation and advancement should not be discounted. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to look at the aeolipile and realize the true potential.
The real Greek inventions that ultimately led to practical steam engines are the watermill and pneumatic pumps rather than toys like the aeolipile, but they still lacked centuries worth of accumulated techniques and knowledge they didn't even have a reason to think about.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Alas, nothing. The level of metalwork, the scientific apparatus was simply not adequate for a job. The required level of precision manufacturing, for making a practical steam engine, was NOT available at that time. It would require enormous handwork of a highly trained craftsman, jewelers, ect., to build a working steam engine in ancien Greece. And the cost would make it totally impractical.
Heron made, to all accounts, a functioning steam jet. Using that to turn a wheel was supposedly demonstrated in the mid 1500s. A functional steam engine of some kind should have been possible for the Alexandrian Greeks. Not a steam engine of the kind using cylinders and pistons, but a simple steam jet of high speed and power blowing across a small "water wheel" to generate torque. Nothing there is beyond the Greeks. Not terribly efficient, but *possible.*
The aeolipile doesn't even demonstrate the basic principles behind the Newcomen engine. They'd have to make turbines for their steam chariots. 
But like I mentioned they invented the watermill, which was the real power behind the early Industrial Revolution. They simply didn't have the geography, resources, and knowledge to create an industrialized society.
But like I mentioned they invented the watermill, which was the real power behind the early Industrial Revolution. They simply didn't have the geography, resources, and knowledge to create an industrialized society.
The aeolipile doesn't even demonstrate the basic principles behind the Newcomen engine. They'd have to make turbines for their steam chariots.
A Newcomen engine would be more complex than a simple "water wheel" spun up by a steam jet.
but yes, to develop an industrialized society they'd need more than just some smart guy putting some things together. Science, democracy and capitalism led to our industrial revolution; the Greeks had the rudiments of the first two, not so much the third. But even the rudiments of science are not quite enough... one thing they didn't really have was the modern understanding that for science to work, you have to openly publish. For too long discoveries were kept secret. And the lack of a printing press sure wouldn't help.
For the Greeks to really develop an industrial revolution they'd likely need the intervention of a Connecticut Yankee. But to develop a steam engine... they had pretty much everything they needed, they just needed to put it together.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Yes, and what exactly this primitive turbine could do? Nothing, except of rotating something very light (like fan). Practical steam turbines appeared only in late XIX century.
Yes, Taqi al-Din steam roasting jack. Hardly a very practical application.
Oh, it is possible. One problem - useless. It could not be used for any practical effect, since the power would be miniscule and rotation very irregular. So, barely an amuzing toy for rich aristocrats.
???
Hero, Ctesibius, Vitruvius, Philo, etc etc, wrote manuals for all this stuff that survive today. Many more were lost, partly because there were no copyright laws and works were subsumed by later authors.
Greece and Rome also had fairly sophisticated and (mostly) free markets.
They also didn't need steam to turn a wheel because they had water and were well aware of machinery's labor-saving virtues.
What they didn't have were the complex webs of technology needed to make steam more than a novelty, which continued to develop for the next 1700 years or so. Making bores in cylinders (from cannon), blast furnaces for cheap iron (creating demand for pumping machines in deeper iron and coal mines), agricultural techniques to create surplus population, centrifugal regulators developed for windmills, and so on and so on.
Without this stuff you just have steam turning a wheel. Which is great but probably a lot more expensive than hiring or buying someone (or something) to turn a wheel for you without deforesting the Peloponnese to keep your fire going. But that's not as impressive which is why these gadgets were reserved for temples and palaces.
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First we think, then we try, eventually we succeed. Nothing is done without a beginning.
pathology_doc
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I'd love to see someone do the Lensman universe, but I don't think anyone would willingly take it on. The all-male Corps of Lensmen was a very important plot point that can't just be handwaved away (there's a REASON the first female Lensman takes so long to appear), and nobody these days would be allowed to do that.
Mind you, that's beside the point, because in the early 1980s a bunch of Japanese animators took it on, and what they did enraged Smith's daughter (the heir to the copyrights) so much that (a) she stated she wanted to take a baseball bat to them and (b) she would never again allow any kind of adaptation. If what the animators did drove her to that level of rage, she'd be nominating a chainsaw for what the current crop of production companies would oblige her to do.
I don't know if that situation has changed.
Mind you, that's beside the point, because in the early 1980s a bunch of Japanese animators took it on, and what they did enraged Smith's daughter (the heir to the copyrights) so much that (a) she stated she wanted to take a baseball bat to them and (b) she would never again allow any kind of adaptation. If what the animators did drove her to that level of rage, she'd be nominating a chainsaw for what the current crop of production companies would oblige her to do.
I don't know if that situation has changed.
Rotating a spit is a useful function. It's not *much* of a function, but do *you* want to do it manually? And this likely was based on a quite small boiler. The power available is relative to the power output of the fire. Bigger fire, bigger boiler, more power.
Also, the *possibility* of a steam powered paddlewheel system for boats in 1543 by Blasco de Garay. Probably didn't happen, but the fact is that it could have.
That detail would be simply ignored. The main character would likely tick as many identify politics boxes as possible.
Bonus: that first female Lensman is a redhead. Hollywood no longer allows gingers.
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Yeah, and the beginning is usually pretty boring. Nobody ever goes back in time and gives the Greeks moldboard plows for some reason.
Turnspit dog - Wikipedia
If you have a chimney you don't have to bother with steam, smoke jacks predate al-Din's steam jack.
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pathology_doc
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Yeah, that's why I don't want to see it done by anyone who hasn't got enough money to raise the middle finger to all of that garbage.
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Boring? Slow perhaps but life is like that and there are people who do math problems for 'fun'. Has anyone suggested going back in time? I did not see it anywhere.
I have, many times. But nobody ever listens...
Well the Connecticut Yankee went somewhere, but I think you misunderstood. Revolutionary inventions usually rest on a foundation of mundanity that's often forgotten or anonymous.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Problem is, that if you are forced to pay small fortune for "not much of a function", it's just the same as "no function at all". Cost is also a consideration. If machine is several orders of magnitude more costly than a simple servant, performing the same function, its only role would be a rich men amusement.
Almost certainly not happen. The first claims about his "steamship" did not appear before XIX century. It is known that de Garay worked on muscle-powered apparatus to move the ship through the complicated systems of gears and shafts turning the paddle wheels, but there are no mentions that he was even interested in pneumatic or steam power.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Well, the biological reason might be the need to put additional genes into Lensman DNA, and Y-chromosome is naturally suited for that...
J Michael Straczynski and Ron Howard worked on it for years but the budget was too big for something with limited appeal and recognition. A completely faithful version would have limited appeal indeed, and I enjoyed the books.
pathology_doc
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I'm not sure Smith ever saw it working like that, but you might be onto something. It might explain why Virgilia Samms - who was recognized by her colleagues as being of Lensman grade - never got a Lens, and why Clarissa MacDougall did. Not saying she was a Y-chromosome mutant or anything, but the relevant combination of genetic material which makes a Lensman what he is might not have found its way onto the X chromosome until those millennia of careful breeding were complete. Then naturally her son gets it from his father, and all her daughters get it from her, as well as everything else the Arisians were breeding towards, including the removal of every genetic flaw that ever plagued humanity. (Remember, Mentor of Arisia tells one of the Children that they are essentially less homo sapiens than he is himself.)
The fact that he also admits the Children of the Lens are "millions of years ahead of your natural time" could easily be used to defend direct genetic meddling. But at the time he started the series, neither Smith nor anyone else knew exactly how genetic material was passed down (the double helix had not yet been delineated), and it's not surprising that he handwaved that and a lot of other stuff (including the way he handled faster-than-light travel).
Having seen what he did with Babylon 5, I would trust JMS to get it right. I think you're wrong about the limited appeal, but we can agree to differ.
The writing is part of the charm but I think it would be utterly painful on screen.
Yeah, that explains why they pay Scarlet Johansson $20 million a movie to dye her hair red.
Stanley Weinbaum (largely forgotten today but hugely influential) had a scientist altering chromosomes with radiation in 1935. Of course he got the number wrong like everyone else back then.
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pathology_doc
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You would have to do it in black and white, with knobs and rheostats and everything else as described in the books, like the old Flash Gordon serials, to keep the charm of that language, and I think many of us would prefer something different. I do realize that the dialogue would have to undergo changes that didn't affect substantive content; I suspect a lot of his references to the spaceman's god Klono were due to an inability to use four-letter words in the publications of the day (although he does refer to one of his characters pausing his sentence 'in the middle of a four-letter Anglo-Saxon word', and if he wasn't trying to hint at "fuck", then call me a monkey's uncle).
Is that one of those movies where they hired Idris Elba to play Heimdal and Tessa Thompson to play a Valkyrie? They kinda had their hands already full of ID box checking in those movies and probably just forgot about the redhead. Were they to re-cast those movies today, you can bet Disney would make some different choices.
martinbayer
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Probably because we can't go back in time?
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Most likely he did not knew much about genetics. At the time of his writing, it was still quite new, significantly unorthodox science, in severe clash with established biology.
A probability, yes.
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I was hoping someone would buy Fulham FC and put some money into it. Never happen though and they yoyo between Premiership and Championship like a hyperactive fiddlers elbow.......
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
In Russia, we (unfortunately) have a specific class of mostly bad historical fiction, known as "popadantsy" (from russian "popast" - to get somewhere, or into something by accident). It's all about accidental time-travellers, that get into the past - either physically, or, even worse, by replacing the personality of some historical person, like Tsar Nikolay - and immediately started the quest of "saving Russia/USSR, defeating the America." Most of those are absolute trash, but this genre is annoyingly popular now.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Oh, by the way:
..Vasily the time-traveler strolls through forest,
In distant past, in long-forgotten time,
His soul sang as victorious chorus,
And slender hands held firmly a flash drive.
His laptop filled with wonders of science,
Blueprints of A-bomb, cure from common cold,
And Mother Russia, with Vasya in alliance,
Would firmly held the crown of the world!
He brought all schemes of wonderful devices;
Tanks, planes, battleships of steel, or wood,
And also many useful advices –
Who should be shot (for sake of Greater Good!)
He went to Tsar; but Lenin would suit also;
But Stalin’s better, ‘cause he cool & smart
And German Reich’s would surely meet fiasco,
With Vasya’s help, it wouldn't get a start!
To whom exact? He simply doesn’t care
For every era the recipe is done,
Kalashnikov’s would stop the Napoleon!
And cannons make short work of Genghis Khan.
And all the Tsars, Genseks and Knyazs of Russia,
Would quickly fell in line with Vasya’s plans.
When great knowledge (stored on the laptop),
Would put ultimate power in their hands.
And Vasya could almost heard the fanfares;
From nobody he would be a superstar!
…He didn’t notice the Jurassic forest,
And Allosaurus cold unblinking eyes…
(c, Rysenok Den, with my translation)
ID boxes like one of the best actors of our generation and super attractive woman?
Nobody complained about "beloved (supporting) characters" like Jimmy Olsen (lol) not being cast ginger in the 70s.
(There are more redheads in the Avengers movies than I know in real life.)
I look forward to Ryan Reynolds being cast in the role of Malcolm X and Harvey Keitel as Dr. Martin Luther King. And Ru Paul as the lead and Desmond Is Amazing as Aisha in "Muhammad The Prophet." Danny Trejo as Emperor Hirohito, Will Smith as Hitler and Oprah Winfrey as Stalin in "WWII: A Love Story."
As to Jimmy Olsen in the 1970's: the Great Ginger Erasure had not yet begun, so people likely didn't even think of it.
As to there being more redheads in the Avengers than you know in real life... how many green people do you know?
martinbayer
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I hope that laptop was solar powered...
Anyone who's read Heinlein knows that there are some stories where the race of characters is important and some where it's not. I know this is subjective, but it seems reasonable that the race of actual civil rights icons is more important than that of fictional multidimensional aliens. None of the others would bother me personally, but I don't spend most of my life online looking for things to get upset about.
Maybe it hadn't begun because there weren't many middle-aged men posting angry memes about She-Ra (lol) and watching videos of middle-aged men sitting in front of toys and screeching about a Great Ginger Erasure. Truly a halcyon age, before the scourge of offset printing allowed more than three hair colors in comic books.
Precisely three less than main Avengers characters with red hair. Not counting Gamora - she's green.
Says who? The BBC, for instance, is going to great lengths to replace actual figures from English/British history with people of impossible ethnicities.
No, because Hollywood had not begun to pander to screeching Tumblr and Twitter wokies who demand that their weird subcultures, fetishes and mental illnesses be depicted out of all proportion, using retconned existing historical, religious and fictional characters rather than inventing new ones.
Something like the nuclear reactor of Haigerloch, the submarine Turtle, the turbojet of Coanda, the electric car of 1900 or the parachute of Leonardo.
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