

Aeolipile - acqq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile

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ugh
… but it was nothing more than an elaborate art project.

The Greeks and Romans certainly had it in them. I wonder whether their
reliance on slave labor hindered bigger leaps. If you were rich enough to let
someone construct such technology you probably already lived one of the most
luxurious lifes in antiquity. Where is the incentive?

To be fair, though, building a toy is easy. Improving that toy in a manner
that makes it actually useful for real world tasks is much harder.

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acqq
> Where is the incentive?

I guess you are right, here's where some had the incentive to use the
technology:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazen_bull>

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RiderOfGiraffes
Do you not mean "Ancient Greeks"?

I thought pretty much everyone knew that Hero invented this steam driven
turbine, but there's no evidence any work was ever extracted from it.

