… the largely unempirical and abstract nature of Greek natural philosophy and the fact that it was generally socially divorced from the practical arts of engineering and architecture meant that most Greek and Roman scientists did little to advance technology, and the idea that the Great Library would have been filled with men excitedly sketching flying machines or submarines is, once again, a fantasy. When all this is pointed out some New Atheists try to invoke counter-evidence. They often claim, for example, that Hero of Alexandria worked at the Great Library and that he invented the steam engine. Even a scientist who has not studied history past high school (i.e. most of them) will have dim memories of the history of the Industrial Revolution and would therefore know it had something to do with the invention of steam engines, so surely Hero brought the ancient world to the brink of industrial transformation. Well, actually, no.
Hero does seem to have been another exception to the rule when it comes to philosophers tinkering with gadgets and it’s possible (though far from certain) that he worked in the Mouseion. But the practical applications of his study of pneumatics and dynamics were more toys and curiosities than any great leaps forward in technology. He famously made an aeolipile, though he didn’t actually invent it, given that it had already been described by the Roman engineer and architect Vitruvius, but this can only be called a “steam engine” in the loosest sense of the term. Hero’s little device was not capable of doing anything more than spinning in place and Roman technology lacked the high tensile metallurgy, the mathematics or the precision tooling that would be required to make a true steam engine. The other technological wonder that is often invoked here is the Antikythera mechanism. Exactly how this intricate mechanical orrery based on a geocentric model is supposed to indicate some nascent Industrial or Scientific Revolution is never made clear, but not only did it have no connection to the Great Library, it was a kind of instrument known since the third century BC. If it is evidence that the Greco-Roman world was on the brink of a technological revolution and was only stymied by the rise of Christianity, one has to wonder what kept them from achieving this wondrous thing for the 600 years between its invention and the conversion of Constantine.
The New Atheist mythic conception of the “Great Library of Alexandria” bears very little resemblance to any historical actuality. It was a shrine with scholars attached to it, not a secular university. Its scholars were far more concerned with poetry, textual analysis, grammar, lexicography and rhetoric than anything we would see as “science”. The proto-science they did do was mainly of a highly abstract and often metaphysical nature rather than anything like modern science. And it was also generally divorced from technical innovation and what little practical application it was given did not much at all to advance technology. The idea that if the Great Library had not been burned down by wicked Christians we’d all be living in gleaming space cities on Europa or Callisto is, therefore, a silly fantasy. And not least because the Great Library … wasn’t burned down by wicked Christians.
Tim O’Neill, “The Great Myths 5: The Destruction Of The Great Library Of Alexandria”, History for Atheists, 2017-07-02.
August 12, 2019
QotD: The “lost technological developments” of the Great Library
August 9, 2019
QotD: Early milestones in aviation
A couple of weeks later, on July 6th 1919 the first east-west transatlantic flight landed at Mineola on Long Island. The RAF airship R34 had left East Fortune in Scotland four days earlier, having been hastily converted to hold passengers, and with a plate welded to an engine exhaust pipe to enable it to cook and serve hot food, which is more trouble than most airlines would go to today. A tabby kitten called Wopsie who served as the crew’s mascot stowed away on the flight, and because nobody at the Long Island end knew anything about landing large airships Major E M Pritchard parachuted out a little early, and became the first man to land on North American soil by air from Europe.
These briefly famous men did not get to savor their celebrity for long: Major Pritchard died in 1921 when the R38 airship exploded over the Humber estuary; his body was never found. Captain Alcock, just six months after his triumph and being knighted by George V, died at Rouen in Normandy in December 1919 when his new Vickers Viking crashed en route to the Paris air show.
Mark Steyn, “Come, Josephine, in My Flying Machine”, SteynOnline, 2019-07-07.
August 6, 2019
How Does it Work: Gas-Delayed Blowback
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 11 Jun 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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Gas-delayed blowback is a relatively uncommon operating system used in handguns. It is not an efficient mechanism for high-pressure rifle power cartridges, but works well with something like 9mm Parabellum. It tends to provide benefits of light felt recoil and better-than-average accuracy, in exchange for overheating much more quickly than other systems.
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August 5, 2019
How Boeing lost its mojo
Rafe Champion linked to this interesting thumbnail-sketch history of the decline and fall of Boeing:
“Boeing 521 427”by pmbell64 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Let’s start by admiring the company that was Boeing, so we can know what has been lost. As one journalist put it in 2000, “Boeing has always been less a business than an association of engineers devoted to building amazing flying machines.”
For the bulk of the 20th century, Boeing made miracles. Its engineers designed the B-52 in a weekend, bet the company on the 707, and built the 747 despite deep observer skepticism. The 737 started coming off the assembly line in 1967, and it was such a good design it was still the company’s top moneymaker thirty years later.
How did Boeing make miracles in civilian aircraft? In short, the the civilian engineers were in charge. And it fell apart because the company, due to a merger, killed its engineering-first culture.
What Happened?
In 1993, Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of Defense, Bill Perry, called defense contractor CEOs to a dinner, nicknamed “the last supper.” He told them to merge with each other so as, in the classic excuse used by monopolists, to find efficiencies in their businesses. The rationale was that post-Cold War era military spending reductions demanded a leaner defense base. In reality, Perry had been a long-time mergers and acquisitions investment banker working with industry ally Norm Augustine, the eventual CEO of Lockheed Martin.
Perry was so aggressive about encouraging mergers that he put together an accounting scheme to have the Pentagon itself pay merger costs, which resulted in a bevy of consolidation among contractors and subcontractors. In 1997, Boeing, with both a commercial and military division, ended up buying McDonnell Douglas, a major aerospace company and competitor. With this purchase, the airline market radically consolidated.
Unlike Boeing, McDonnell Douglas was run by financiers rather than engineers. And though Boeing was the buyer, McDonnell Douglas executives somehow took power in what analysts started calling a “reverse takeover.” The joke in Seattle was, “McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing’s money.”
[…]
The key corporate protection that had protected Boeing engineering culture was a wall inside the company between the civilian division and military divisions. This wall was designed to prevent the military procurement process from corrupting civilian aviation. As aerospace engineers Pierre Sprey and Chuck Spinney noted, military procurement and engineering created a corrupt design process, with unnecessary complexity, poor safety standards, “wishful thinking projections” on performance, and so forth. Military contractors subcontract based on political concerns, not engineering ones. If contractors need to influence a Senator from Montana, they will place production of a component in Montana, even if no one in the state can do the work.
August 3, 2019
Polish PM63 Rak at the Range
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 8 Jun 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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Whether it is described as a machine pistol, a submachine gun, or a personal defense weapon, the PM63 Rak is really not the best examples of this sort of thing to actually shoot. The open-bolt/slide mechanism is very cool from an engineering and design perspective, but does in fact have a tendency to hit one in the face, as inadvertently demonstrated by my high-speed video shooting volunteer. Even if it doesn’t do that, the sights reciprocating on the slide make it a difficult gun to shoot accurately.
Thanks to Movie Armament Group in Toronto for giving me the opportunity to take this to the range! Check out MAG on Instagram: https://instagram.com/moviearmamentsg…
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
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August 2, 2019
PM63 Rak: An Interesting Polish SMG/PDW Hybrid
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 7 Jun 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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The PM-63 Rak is a pretty interesting Polish Cold War machine pistol or personal defense weapon. It fires from an open bolt, but uses a slide like a pistol rather than a bolt in an enclosed receiver like a typical SMG. There are several other interesting elements to the design, so let’s take a closer look…
Thanks to Movie Armament Group in Toronto for giving me the opportunity to bring you this video! Check out MAG on Instagram: https://instagram.com/moviearmamentsg…
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
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August 1, 2019
Maxim “Prototype”: The First Practical Machine Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 31 Jul 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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Hiram Maxim was the first person to create a truly practical and functional machine gun, based on a patent he filed in 1883. He pioneered the recoil operating system – the concept of harnessing the recoil generated by a firearm to perform the actions of reloading that firearm. His patent was based on a lever action rifle, but his intent was to create a machine gun, complete with belt feed and water cooling. After a testbed “forerunner” gun, he built this model which he called the “Prototype”. It was meant as a proof of concept, and used in many public exhibitions and demonstrations.
The Prototype used a hydraulic rate of fire control system which could be set as high as 500 rounds/minute and as low as just one round per minute. The gun did not have a trigger as we would recognize it today, but rather a single lever like a vehicle accelerator which acted as both trigger and fire rate control. Only three of these Prototypes exist today, with one belonging to the USMC, one on public display at the Royal Armouries museum in Leeds, and this one in the NFC reserve collection at Leeds.
For a fantastic exploded view of all this guns working parts, check out this work by YouTube channel vbbsmyt:
Many thanks to the Royal Armouries for allowing me to film this tremendously important artifact! The NFC collection there — perhaps the best military small arms collection in Western Europe — is available by appointment to researchers:
https://royalarmouries.org/research/n…
You can browse the various Armouries collections online here:
https://royalarmouries.org/collection/
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754
July 31, 2019
The Jaguar E-Type / XK-E Story
Big Car
Published on 10 May 2019To help me continue producing great content, please consider supporting me: https://www.patreon.com/bigcar
The Jaguar XK-E or E-Type may be the most beautiful car in history. It’s certainly one of the most sought after, with cars fetching crazy prices at auction. It’s a car born out of a Le Mans-winning heritage, delivering looks with speed and handling to match, all at an affordable price. Yet somehow it had a top speed over 150mph, while also not having a top speed over 150mph!
#JaguarEType #JaguarXKE #EType
July 29, 2019
South African R2 and its Special Furniture
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 5 Jun 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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In South African military service, the R1 was the FN FAL and was the preferred infantry combat rifle until the adoption of the Galil as the R4 rifle. So what were the guns in between? Well, the R2 was a South African adaptation of the G3. A large number of rifles were needed as a reserve, and also to equip second echelon units like the Air Force, Cape Corps, and South West Africa Territorial Force. To reduce the expense of this, South Africa purchased something like 100,000 G3 rifles from Portugal and designated them R2.
The Portuguese hand guards and buttstocks were found to be unsatisfactory, however. In the heat and harsh ultraviolet radiation of South West Africa (now Namibia) in particular, the plastic would shrink and lose its fit, leading to the guns being called “rattlers” by the SADF troops. The fix this, the American firm of Choate Machine & Tool was contracted to make new hand guards based on the H&K export pattern — wider and longer and with fittings for a bipod. New stocks were also made, duplicating the shape of the R1/FAL stock.
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754
July 26, 2019
How Does it Work: Blow Forward
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 28 May 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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The blow forward system has only been used on three commercially-produced firearms: the Schwarzlose 1908, Hino-Komuro, and Mannlicher 1894 (The SIG AK-53 uses a forward barrel movement, but in conjunction with a locked breech). It offers a simple system with a theoretical extra margin of safety because the side cannot come backward off the gun, but at the cost of substantially increased felt recoil. Once the blowback system was out of patent protection, there was no convincing reason to use the blow forward mechanism.
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754
July 23, 2019
How Does It Work: Direct Gas Impingement
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 21 May 2019Interested in small arms history? Make sure to pre-order a copy of my book, Chassepot to FAMAS: French Military Rifles 1866 – 2016:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/…
Direct gas impingement is an operating system that has been used only in a few production guns (all of them rifles). It is extremely simple, although perhaps not well suited to adjustability. It is also not the operating system of the AR series of rifles – we will cover those in a separate video.
http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754
July 20, 2019
50th anniversary
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot, stands on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module, Eagle, during the Apollo 11 moonwalk. Astronaut Neil Armstrong, mission commander, took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. While Armstrong and Aldrin descended in the lunar module to explore the Sea of Tranquility, astronaut Michael Collins, command module pilot, remained in lunar orbit with the Command and Service Module, Columbia. *This is the actual photograph as exposed on the moon by Armstrong. He held the camera slightly rotated so that the camera frame did not include the top of Aldrin’s portable life support system (“backpack”). A communications antenna mounted on top of the backpack is also cut off in this picture. When the image was released to the public, it was rotated clockwise to restore the astronaut to vertical for a more harmonious composition, and a black area was added above his head to recreate the missing black lunar “sky”. The edited version is the one most commonly reproduced and known to the public, but the original version, above, is the authentic exposure.
Bootprint in lunar dust created and photographed by Buzz Aldrin for the boot penetration (soil mechanics) task during the Apollo 11 moon walk.
July 17, 2019
V Bombers – Vulcan, Victor & Valiant – The Last British Bombers
Curious Droid
Published on 28 Nov 2017It took just 11 years to go from the first flight of the Lancaster Bomber in 1941 to the first flight of the VX770, the prototype Vulcan bomber in 1952. Yet the difference between them could hardly be greater, the Vulcan along with the Victor and Valiant were a new generation of the new planes known as the “V” bombers, planes for a new era and a newly, nuclear-armed Britain.
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Paypal.me : https://www.paypal.me/curiousdroidSponsers: Drew Hendrix, Symon Hamer, Florian Hesse, Lucius Kwok, Hunter Schwisow, Pyloric, Seb Stoodley, Oscar Anderson, Peter Cote, Cody Belichesky, Mogoreanu Daniel, Douglas Gustafson, Marcus Chiado, Jorn Magnus Karlsen.
This episode’s shirt was the was the Tabla Paisley by Madcap England and is available from https://www.atomretro.com/madcap_england.
Get 10% discount with the code DROID10.Presented by Paul Shillito
Written and Researched by Andy Munzer
Additional material by Paul Shillito
Images and footage: Avro, Handley-Page, Vickers-Armstrong
Jim Debinham, Pathe.Music – Machiotil by Seclorance is licensed under an Attribution License.
Source : http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Sec…
TAB Short: US Military Railway Guns In Action
The Armourer’s Bench
Published on May 19, 2019During World War One massive railway guns were used to reach deep behind enemy lines and attack enemy infrastructure with both sides using the massive artillery pieces. In this episode Matt takes a look at some archival footage of America’s massive railway guns ranging from 10 to 16 inches.
Check out our accompanying article for more information and sources at:
https://armourersbench.com/2019/05/19/us-military-railway-guns-in-action/If you enjoy our work please consider supporting us via Patreon, TAB is a viewer supported, non-monetised channel and any help is very much appreciated!
We have some great new perks, check out our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/thearmourersb…
The Answer:
According to the original footage notes the mystery item is a 60-feet tall captured German field periscope ‘claimed to have been used by the German Crown Prince during the war’.Footage:
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/24749
July 16, 2019
Bitcoin mining’s massive carbon buttprint
Lincoln Swann explains why Bitcoin has become a huge environmental liability as its per-unit cost-to-mine has risen:
“Bitcoin – from WSJ”by MarkGregory007 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Bitcoin is more than a rather volatile imitation currency, it is also a huge energy monster.
The digital “mining” to create more Bitcoins and the recording of transactions uses up vast, crazy, amounts of electricity – something like 70TWh a year. That is about the same as Austria, say 20% of UK power consumption. As an added horror much if it is done in China where most of the power is coal generated.
All that adds up to a CO2 output from Bitcoin stuff of about 35mt a year. Planet friendly it definitely aint.
