Roman Engineering: Crash Course History of Science #6
The Romans developed a lot of infrastructure like roads and aqueducts to both help their cities flourish and to... you know... be better at war. But the interesting ...
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The Romans invented concrete over two thousands years ago and built roads which are still around today. They used arches and domes to create monumental buildings with big airy interiors that looked truly Olympian—also still around. And they moved thousands of tons of water using aqueducts to keep a bustling population un-thirsty. These old buildings? Also still around! But did the Romans come up with ideas about physics? Like why arches support weight differently than right-angled structures? Did they ask proto-chemistry questions—that is, “what is stuff?”—such as which tiny things make up a good concrete? Nope. Let’s look at what knowledge the Romans made in order to set up a debate that, spoiler alert, is still going on: do you understand something when you can e...
==========
The Romans invented concrete over two thousands years ago and built roads which are still around today. They used arches and domes to create monumental buildings with big airy interiors that looked truly Olympian—also still around. And they moved thousands of tons of water using aqueducts to keep a bustling population un-thirsty. These old buildings? Also still around! But did the Romans come up with ideas about physics? Like why arches support weight differently than right-angled structures? Did they ask proto-chemistry questions—that is, “what is stuff?”—such as which tiny things make up a good concrete? Nope. Let’s look at what knowledge the Romans made in order to set up a debate that, spoiler alert, is still going on: do you understand something when you can e...
