thanks! that reminds me i haven’t even finished Chapter 3 yet, after breezing through Science Education… premature question!

See The Scientist in the Early Roman Empire, Ch. 4.7.

The idea began with Plato and was first realized in the Hellenistic research academies (most famously but not exclusively in Alexandria, Syracuse, and Rhodes), but their research focus declined with the kingdoms that funded them. Renewed calls for a Roman version begin at least as early as Vitruvius and Pliny the Elder, but the Roman Empire collapsed within 200 years. In that interim, state and private support for science gradually did increase, but fell short of anything akin to the Royal Society. It just didn’t catch an emperor’s fancy, despite frequent trying. Details (and possible causal explanations) op. cit.

what records of/references his ‘foundation-mongering’ (not intended pejoratively) survived? how long prior to the collapsing were such arguments put forward?

It’s not spelled, vocal chords.

Those are the same thing.

When you are talking a time scale of centuries, disasters are irrelevant. As long as ideas remain free.

The Great Courses has an excellent series on Greek and Roman Technology. Although not strictly speaking about scientific research and science, it touches on many technologies that evidently influenced and were influenced by science. One example is his demonstration of how there were suction pumps for aqueducts and water supplies in cities. Plenty of demos and working scale models also.

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/understanding-greek-and-roman-technology-from-catapult-to-the-pantheon.html

Much less than is claimed, though. No major advances (everything claimed to be, was actually a revival of theories and research already done in antiquity), and only small improvements (e.g. they listened to Ptolemy’s request to get a better estimate of the diameter of the earth). For example, that Wikipedia article you link to, falsely claims “He was the first to explain that vision occurs when light bounces on an object and then is directed to one’s eyes.” Nope. That theory originated with the atomists shortly after Aristotle (if not before), and was continually discussed by later optical physicists, including Hipparchus and Ptolemy, and advocated by other scientists whose works were not preserved in the West (but probably known to al-Haytham, hence where he got the idea).

The Muslims had a brief scientific renaissance in the 9th-11th century, but it was killed by religious fanatics, and the fate of the Islamic world was sealed as forever centuries behind the West. Biggest mistake they ever made. Had they continued, they could have been five hundred years ahead of the West.

You seem to pass over medieval Muslims/Arab/Perso contributions to science here…there must’v been some original thinkers not just conveyors or cannibalisers eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Haytham