I was talking about ancient science with a guy I ran into today. What he knew was fascinating. Mainly ancient Greek architecture.
We had 2 encyclopedias when I was a kid. The best was a 1940’s Funk and Wagner. The entry they had on the building of the Roman roads was many pages. I remember sitting on the floor on of the basement, reading all of it with total enjoyment.
I also remember the joy of reading various random entries in the encyclopedia. My grandfather had a wonderful book series “Ingenious Mechanisms for Inventors and Designers” originally published in 1930. I remember pursuing that endlessly when I was about 12 years old back in 1962.
The simple joys of opening books and exploring and discovering things is long gone, I’m afraid. Those were good days. You’ll never get that browsing the web.