A Random History of Mining (and thus the industrial revolution)

Date
September 11, 2009

Speaker
Matthew Dockrey

Abstract
Cavemen digging in the dirt, pretentious German burghers, atmospheric engines, insane vertical escalators… This might seem like a random series of subjects, but I will do my best to impose a narrative backbone. The two main themes to be explored are the intimate link between the development of mining and the development of technology in general, and how solving the core problem of deep mining ended up changing the world forever.