I tend to wonder how much time was wasted waiting for some historical innovations to happen and lead to technological breakthroughs. For some given invention, there is some point at which it was possible to invent, and another point at which it was invented. How big is that gap, historically?

Take gunpowder as an example. Per Wikipedia, the first combination of niter, sulfur, and charcoal occured in China in the 9th century, while niter was known in the 1st century. The combination wasn’t used for weaponry until the 10th century, and only then as a fire arrow.

Imagine if, in the times of the Romans, fireworks were being used in the East! There was nothing preventing their invention other than the human ingenuity of “Let’s take this exploding powder and put it in a paper tube for easy containment.” It would not be very long before someone else came up with the idea of putting the firework in a bamboo tube and putting a rock in front of it.

So then, I ask a question to which I don’t know the answer: How much of human history was spent waiting on an invention to become feasible (i.e., for something else to be invented), and how much was spent waiting for someone to put the things together in the right way?