I’m sure a lot of fascinating intellectual and engineering subtleties like this were lost after the fall of Rome.
Nicholas Cage needs to get on that.
Self healing concrete! who knew? It only took 2000 years to figure it out but good news since there are real world implications for today.
Like making a kickass meal, it’s less about specific mixtures and it’s more about the overall concept. Just throw in a bit of this and a bit of that and zip! Something good came out! That’s what we need more of today. Things have become more and more exacting, which is good, but we forget to go rogue a bit and try something new.
Actually I think they were using very specific formulas more like baking and less like cooking. Even the use of a specific volcanic ash was shipped around the empire as part of the formula for their concrete. The use of heated lime, lime clasts, is what made the concrete self healing. In terms of this information for use today the article states “this self healing potential could pave the way to producing more long-lasting, and thus more sustainable, modern concrete. Such a move would reduce concrete’s carbon footprint, …”