You’re talking about several different technologies when you say “fireworks”. You need a powder that’s safe to handle, a barrel that’s strong enough to contain the explosion, an ignition system, and a projectile that does some kind of damage.
10th century starts at 900 CE, so you’re actually talking about 1100 years from 200 BCE.
However, you’re also using a very loose definition of fireworks. They (the Han dynasty) were throwing bamboo tubes into fire to make them go BANG in 200 BCE. Those weren’t even related (most likely) to the invention of gunpowder. The best theories suggest alchemist sets looking for the elixir of life when they stumbled on something pretty flammable.
Gunpowder in a reasonably effective form wasn’t invented until about 800 CE (9th century) by the Tang dynasty. That was refined for the next 100 years to be more effective and around 900CE they got close to what we have today. They (the Song dynasty) used it pretty much immediately to make weapons (fire arrows).
Heron of Alexandria invented an ‘almost a steam engine’ in ~40 AD/CE.
He also invented basically early robots, vending machines, and floor pressure activated doors.
They just… did not catch on widely, or were viewed as toys or one-offs.
Again, roughly in the same timeframe ascribed to the life of Christ.
The problem he had is the same problem some scientists face today - forgetting to / being unable to also invent a way to mass produce it.
Pressure doors for example used way more resources and labor than today’s automatic doors.
Vending machines were limited on what they could vend and again, weren’t ready to build.
Not to mention all this type of information back then had to be hand copied, as blueprints &tc didn’t exist either, so any scribe errors would hinder spread further.
Well yes, but, the irony is that, had he gone a bit further with his device, connected it to say, a shaft, and a gear, and then ground millet with it…
Welp, thats how you get an industrial revolution.
Which then lays the ground work for a society to be able to develop mass production.
The aeolipile wasn’t really a stream engine. I’ve played with modern versions, and you can stop the spin with your hand. Not a bare hand mind, because it’s rather hot. But a cloth or a glove is fine.
These toys have zero power to do any useful work.
This is why an actual steam engine uses a reciprocating piston. Because doing it that way builds pressure and thus power.
I can stop any household fan with my hand. That doesn’t mean they’re not real machines. Scale of a device has nothing to do with whether it’s design is real or not. Is a mechanical watch not a real machine because Big Ben is so much bigger? Is a motorized bicycle not a real machine because trucks exist? That steam engine is absolutely a steam engine. It uses mechanical principles to induce motion. Being weak doesn’t disqualify it. Alter the jets, raise the temperature, link 10 of them together, whatever and you’ll have something more difficult to stop.
I just looked it up cause I was curious, and cannons were in-between. Then as industry evolved cannons became smaller and more deadly and eventually turned into personal firearms.
I’d say it wasn’t that long, relatively, to figure out that we could point them at each other. I mean hell, the Chinese used fireworks as weapons like I immediately after inventing them, bringing with them the first flamethrowers.
Stalin’s Organ (Katyusha) ain’t got shit on the Hwach’a:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwacha
I would very much like to know more about Chinese use of ‘fireworks’ as weapons, if you could point me to something on it!
These were fun in Civ III
Korea was fucking broken in Civ3, like, OP broken.
Either that, or their set of civ/leader bonuses or whatever just… really clicked with me.
Fuck.
Got me feeling all: Ancient Drums and Horns
The soundtrack is so good. I listen to it often. I should fire up a new game, might ruin my Christmas holidays though
… one… more… turn…
No but for real, probably actually wait untill XMas is over, haahha!
Bold of you to assume people weren’t stupid enough to aim them at each other for fun before then.
And quickly realizing they could be used for more.
Well, you could have pointed them at people as soon as they were invented 🙃
Then the gun would have been invented in 200 BC. 🤣
Making something that goes boom is easy. Making something that can contain a boom and channel the boom into only one direction is difficult. Quality metallurgy and precision metal work is actually difficult. Making a tube and a projectile that fit each other nicely is very hard to do at scale.
No, but rockets were a thing
no, you might have a rocket propelled grenade though
True!
Now you can kill someone with code…
deploys LLM to convince vulnerable teens to commit suicide
this is percival fredrickstein von musel klossowski de rolo III erasure
