WI: Library of ALexandria doesn't burn down

I read somewhere that we would be a lot more advanced then we are now if the library never burned down. Anyway what would have happened then?
 
Steamship lines to America by 750 and moon landings before 1000!

No, seriously - no. The Library may well be the most overestimated piece of real estate in history. If it hadn't burned down (if it did), it would have rotted away from neglect (as it may well have). You really don't change anything by not having the library burn (Alexandria is bad for papyrus survival). In order to preserve it, you would have to change the literary and knowledge culture of Late Antiquity, and with that changwe in place, a continuing Museion becomes no more than a symptom.
 
I read somewhere that we would be a lot more advanced then we are now if the library never burned down. Anyway what would have happened then?
Vaslty more preserved history and literature of the ancient world and a little more mathematical and technological know-how waiting for materials and society to catch up to the extent said knowlage can become useful as something other than nick-nacks for the ultra-rich to show off.

Of cause, this may speed up subsiquent technological development... but the cliche of vast accelerations (e.g. space flight by 1000AD) is still abjectly absurd.
 
Which time?
Under the Christians or under the Moslems?

If the (probably legendary) burning in the seventh century didn't happen, it would srtill be an almost worthless collection. The tale of Omar is first told in the 12th century, as a pious story to inspire Muslim warriors to emulate the simple and virtuous ways of their ancestors. There is no earlier evidence for it, likely because when the Muslim conquerors entered Alexandria, there was no Great Library. The story only became entrenched in folklore after Greek historical texts were translated in the 8th-10th centuries and thus an unknown writer in an Ayyubid context probably created what he considered an uplifting tale to explain why this wonder-house hadn't survived.

Of course, between the fires reported under Caesar, Hadrian, the Severans, Aurelian, Diocletian, bishop Cyril and Heraclius, we have plenty of potential PODs if we are so minded. But it is still most likely the Museion collection declined because it was considered unnecessary or undesireable and eventually was sold off, reused, burned, or rotted away.
 
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