natalie m

They also never put concrete under tension, only compression, neatly sidestepping the problem of rebar rusting (and therefore expanding) once water had sufficiently penetrated that the pH of the concrete dropped low enough for rusting to happen. Though it sounds like they might have not had too much of that problem either with this tech!

that 3d printing mention at the end lol

This is extremely cool and interesting

So basically the Romans preheated their concrete in order to get special reactions and set more quickly. That makes a lot of sense.

i was so excited about this news in january i was like FUCK THIS IS SO GREAT WHAT A GREAT START TO THE YEAR but it was basically the peak of the year

This plus figuring out that greek fire was a specific type of kerosene from a natural source that was low in hydrocarbons and the discovery of some perfectly preserved scrolls in another town that was wiped out by Vesuvius that might contain the rest of the Greek epics has resulted in 2023 being an absolutely wild year for figuring stuff out from antiquity