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Anton Howes
antonhowes.substack.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2019
Anton Howes, an economic historian, writes about the history of invention and innovation, such as why the steam engine came late.
What HN saysHN commenters cite it as an example of the high-quality niche blogs on Substack and link it for its history of early steam power and printing.
20HN people shared it
4linked it in comments
22stories submitted
544story points
4 years agolast shared
2019people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Why wasn't the steam engine invented earlier? Part II2 people · 207 points · first shared 2022 · 304 comments on HN
- 2Age of Invention: Did the Ottomans Ban Print?2 people · 1 points · first shared 2022 · 1 comments on HN
- 3Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier? Part III1 people · 142 points · first shared 2022 · 149 comments on HN
- 4Rise of the Mathematicians1 people · 98 points · first shared 2019 · 19 comments on HN
- 5Lessons from the invention of the thermometer1 people · 43 points · first shared 2022 · 4 comments on HN
- 6Age of Invention: Plague of the Sea1 people · 31 points · first shared 2021 · 4 comments on HN
- 7Why Wasn't the Steam Engine Invented Earlier?1 people · 3 points · first shared 2022 · 2 comments on HN
- 8Why did it take until the 1970s to invent Dungeons & Dragons?1 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · 2 comments on HN
- 9The New Space Empires1 people · 2 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 10Age of Invention: Wonder of the World1 people · 2 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 11Age of Invention: Leveraged Philanthropy1 people · 2 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 12The Power of Exhibitions1 people · 1 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 13The greatest R&D hub of the sixteenth century1 people · 1 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 14The Pull of Cities1 people · 1 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 15Age on Invention: The English Crisis1 people · 1 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
throwawaaaaay17 · 2021-09-20
Substack is driving a blog renaissance. A ton of high-quality niche blogs popping up everywhere.
See, for example, https://antonhowes.substack.com/ (I'm not affiliated with the writer, though I am considering switching from free to paid)
BlueTemplar · 2023-05-04
It goes to the beginnings of Western science.
The alchemist Cornelis Drebbel successfully harnessed what he considered to be the perpetual motion of the universe for his perpetual motion machine...
https://antonhowes.substack.com/p/age-of-invention-why-wasnt-the-steam…
... that now we know to have been changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure, both concepts which were very fuzzy at the time, especially the pressure.
Sadly, his machine had made such an impression, that the legend of it then continued to plague patent applications for centuries !
kragen · 2022-07-15
To me the most surprising thing about this series is that de Caus had a working CSP (concentrated solar power) setup by 01615 (https://antonhowes.substack.com/i/57230676/solar-powered-steam-engines… original source https://archive.org/details/raisonsdesforce00Caus). I had thought CSP only dated to Shuman's installation in Egypt in 01913, but I see that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power#History also mentions that Mouchout did a solar steam engine in 01866.
But 01615! We've had working solar power machinery for four centuries.
ogogmad · 2022-02-04
Relevant. The Ottoman empire got its first Muslim-owned printing press in 1729; nearly 300 years after its invention and widespread adoption in Europe: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/53544/did-the-ottoman-empi…
[edit] Even better: https://antonhowes.substack.com/p/age-of-invention-did-the-ottomans