Hello,
I understand that development of glass was a big stepping stone in the development of the western civilizations. Did wine have anything to do with that movement? How crucial was, the need to store wine, in the development of glass in the west?
China was big on tea so they never needed glass to store tea properly. So there was no need to develop glass. which cause one of the more advanced civilizations to slow down development.
I believe this was mentioned on Qi I was wondering how true this is? Or were they just speculating?
thank you.
Sounds like speculation to me. The Romans developed glass, but they liked to store their wine in clay amphorae or for short periods in metal vessels containing lead that would turn acidic wine sweet (by making lead acetate, "sugar of lead"). Glass was used primarily to make drinking cups, originally as a status symbol but eventually for common use. The practice of wine storage in glass bottles dates from the 1600s, having to await the development of coal-fired glass furnaces. In other words, glass technology led to wine bottles, not the other way around. As to why the Europeans never developed fine ceramics and the Chinese never developed transparent glass, chance is perfectly sufficient to account for it. Real life doesn't have a set tech tree; it's easy to discover one thing without discovering something else.