This lovely article about the durability of Roman concrete attracted my attention as I like that period of history and its engineering side. However, this quote from the article is the most interesting for me:
Previously disregarded as merely evidence of sloppy mixing practices, or poor-quality raw materials, the new study suggests that these tiny lime clasts gave the concrete a previously unrecognized self-healing capability.
Except it’s a great example of how new research can change our understanding of the past, it can change our look at some usual things for us. For example, in game design and video games aspects, we often don’t understand why a game is successful, or why we like it even it doesn’t have the best game mechanics or is made so so on the first look. So maybe those games contain their own “tiny lime clasts” that give them the capability. And we can learn from them.
