Industrial Revolution before gunpowder?

[Faeelin]

It's a necessary step in between. In hindsight, it's easy to say "if only the Romans had invented the steam engine". Did they have thermometers, or valves? What was the most complicated machine they had?

The Romans?

Umm, waterwheels used for things like cutting lumber? (Probably).

Nah, probably some toy in Alexandria.

Valves? I think they did, though some one else might wanna answer it.

I'd agree that there's some technological development necessary, but the sugar mills are a symptom, not a cause.

There's more difference between Heron's machines and a 19th century factory than between Venice's arsenal and Skunkworks.

Hwow about something like a roman mine in spain? Requires capital investment, slave labor, complex machinery..

 

[Max Sinister]

Now I've got to ask: Did you ever look at a blueprint of a steam machine, or a locomotive, or something similar?

 

[Faeelin]

Now I've got to ask: Did you ever look at a blueprint of a steam machine, or a locomotive, or something similar?

No, but I also don't think the industrial revolution is just mankind harnessing the power of steam.

 

[Croesus]

Hwow about something like a roman mine in spain? Requires capital investment, slave labor, complex machinery..

Good point. The undoubted mineral wealth helped create a local industry that innovated OTL: the catalan forge was an important development (though admittedly during the Moorish period) in metallurgy. The catalan forge was developed further by simply lengthening the shaft and over time this evolves into the blast furnace. With your blast furnace you start innovating into other areas, such as developing tilt hammers, slitting mills etc, which gives you the technological cluster that spills out into other areas (eg with slitting mills you get nails, which leads to advances in building construction).

Given the accepted recognition of Islamic Spains role in maintaining and disseminating learning traditions it suggests itself as a good place to start building an ATL.

Croesus

 

[Analytical Engine]

The Romans?

Umm, waterwheels used for things like cutting lumber? (Probably).

Nah, probably some toy in Alexandria.

Valves? I think they did, though some one else might wanna answer it.

I'd agree that there's some technological development necessary, but the sugar mills are a symptom, not a cause.

They (the Byzantines, anyway) had waterwheels for cutting marble.

The Romans did have pistons, so that implies some kind of valve.

 

[Faeelin]

Anyway, I never said all you need is a better aelopile; I merely think it's possible, if you set up the system right, to have an IR a couple of centuries after a POD.

 

[Faeelin]

Good point. The undoubted mineral wealth helped create a local industry that innovated OTL: the catalan forge was an important development (though admittedly during the Moorish period) in metallurgy.

For some reason, I feel like thre was once a discussion of Catalan forges in late Roman Spain, but I'm probably hallucinating.

 

[richie42]

Actually there almost was, at least to the Romans or Greeks. An engineer once made a very simple steam engine if he had followed that up there may have been a much earlier Industrial Revolution.

Didn't the Greeks make a computer?

I heard that they also had some steam engine, saw it on the History Channel, I think.

 

[Hecatee]

In my late roman alt-hist I have Julian II live longer and institute a bunch of the brightest literary minds in a palace at Rome, some kind of new Great Library, and then his successor decides to do the same with a bunch of military engineers who're to teach all the futures engineers of the army and study new principles in naval construction brought by the chineses ( met during the life of Julian ) : this leads to a new era of intellectual growth during which Hero's work are rediscovered by practical minds ( the roman military engineers ) which leads to an industrialisation of the empire, at first without steam but more with water and wind power as well as some kinds of new ways to prepare wool and textiles, also steam less, like the inventions in Lyon during the pre-revolutionary era.

This leads to a better overall economy and more investments as well as new organization of the textile production centers, with some true factories appearing under rationalized plans ( the military influence ).

What i'm trying to tell is that industrialization is a complex phenomenon not really dependent on the actual tech level of the culture but more on the intellectual development of the culture.

 

[richie42]

The Industrial Revolution was a product of the humanist thinking of the Renaissance. With the brightest minds thinking about science instead of religion, the factories could be invented. The Greeks and Romans did have some of this humanism (more to the Greeks). But if their science went further and the empires lasted, there would have been an industrial revolution back then.

 

[Incognitia]

The Industrial Revolution was a product of the humanist thinking of the Renaissance. With the brightest minds thinking about science instead of religion, the factories could be invented. The Greeks and Romans did have some of this humanism (more to the Greeks). But if their science went further and the empires lasted, there would have been an industrial revolution back then.

Not...exactly.
It was more about the brightest minds thinking about money; specifically about new and exciting ways to make more money than they ever had before.
The discoveries of men tinkering with things to make them more productive spurred the development of science. The other way 'round came only much later.
If you actually look in detail at the Middle Ages, you see some substantial technical improvements before the Renaissance.

Re the OP, I think you can have an Industrial Revolution without gunpowder fairly easily, as long as you can somehow avert the use of gunpowder. A pre-gunpowder Industrial revolution is a different proposition entirely, with the main constraints being social organisation and population densities.