Heron and his Steam Engine, why was it not developed further? Michael Lahanas

... For if every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, says the poet, of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods; if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves.
Aristotle Politics Chapter 3, Book 1

^The development of technology and science depends on a complex way on socio-politic-economic parameters. Why should Greeks develop a telescope if Prolemy's cosmological model was accurate enough? More likely it would be interesting as an instrument useful for the military (see Galileo). Why should the Athenians adapt the Meton calendar or later more accurate calendars? If you develop one accurate measuring device then sometimes you discover other unexpected effects or phenomena (or other interesting things such as some moons of Jupiter) and to study these you develop other devices. Today we know this and we hope by increasing the capabilities of a device also to expand our knowledge with new discoveries. You need of course some financial support for the development, for the material and the necessary experiments. Ancient Greeks knew that heated air expands, or that the length of a cord as Heron describes changes by humidity, but there was no reason to use this information to produce a device to measure temperature (by the expansion, just by placing a scale) or humidity. The question is how the volume or the length depends on temperature but one can find this with controlled experiments. Such experiments were performed by Greek engineers when they developed the catapults. Recently there was an interesting BBC report of the construction of a giant catapult. Experienced engineers constructed a catapult and after 2-3 shots the catapult was damaged. Engineeers using Laptop computers estimated the range, experiments in modern laboratories were used to find a material that can be used for the storage of energy. They had to lift the heavy parts of the giant catapult with a modern device after they tried to use a device used by the Romans and the experiment failed. The engineers were happy that they were able to use the catapult 2-3 times whereas for the ancient Greeks and Romans it would be a disaster if they had to produce a new catapult after a few shots. The ancient engineers probably reached the physical limits of these devices with wood as material and some maybe metal support.

I was reading the notes of a US professor discussing the reason why technology was not developed for almost 1000 years from 400 to say 1500. We assume that the ancient Greeks were more “theoretical” oriented but devices such as the (he described various devices that work with air or steam). , the planetarium, the screw device of Archimedes etc, shows that a more advanced technology could be developed on a broader basis. Archimedes considered his technical devices to be not worthwhile to write about. There is no material written for the planetarium, the screw, and other machines like his war devices.