From: SolomonW@citi.com   
      
   On Tue, 16 Oct 2018 07:53:21 +0100, Martin Edwards wrote:   
      
   > On 10/15/2018 6:13 PM, ggggg9271@gmail.com wrote:   
   >> On Monday, October 15, 2018 at 5:06:25 AM UTC-10, reader wrote:   
   >>>> In all honestly, as far as I can tell the only thing   
   >>>> stopping the Industrial Revolution from happen in ancient   
   >>>> Roman times, instead of the 18th century, was the Roman   
   >>>> elite.   
   >>>   
   >>> Simple, all of the prerequisite technology elements of the industrial   
   >>> revolution were not in place.   
   >>>   
   >>> China was the leader in technology until about the 17th century.  If it   
   >>> were to have happened anywhere else it would b china.   
   >>>   
   >>> A 1st century roman in egypt described a rudimentary steam engine, which we   
   >>> associate with the industrial revolution as a primary energy conversion   
   >>> prerequisite.   
   >>   
   >> I thought that technological progress doesn't occur when there is a lot of   
   cheap labor.   
   >>   
   >> In the the case of ancient Rome, wasn't that about slaves?   
   >>   
   >> And in the case of China up to the 17th c., didn't it experience a   
   population boom after that?   
   >>   
   > Hero of Alexandria made steam driven automata and theatre curtains, but,   
   > as you say, there were slaves, so the technology was not pursued any   
   > further.   
      
   Reader's points are valid; the early uses of coal engines were in textiles,   
   something that Roman engineering had not yet developed the technology to   
   mechanize.   
      
   Nor did Rome have gunpowder to help mine coal, would that powered Hero of   
   Alexandria's machine was very expensive in Rome. Coal as the technology was   
   not there.   
      
   Roman mechanical engineering was not as good as European in the 1700s.   
      
   Furthermore, slaves were not cheap in the later Rome era, and they were   
   scarce, which probably accounts for why we see watermills starting up then.   
      
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