Could we change the ancient world with today's knowledge ?

[MaximB]

Hello !

About a week ago I read a very interesting and funny article in some non-English magazine - I want to share parts of this article with you...

Could we change the ancient world with today's knowledge ? most people could not.

In our Hi-Tech world and wide professions that didn't existed in the past there is a very little we could contribute to the ancient world.

Let's say that you where transferred to the dark ages - what could you say ?
"He guys, do you know the earth turns around the sun" ?
"Got any prof ?"
"Well...mmm...we got spaceships..awww..no...mmm...Galileo where are you ?".
"Show us prof or we gonna stone you to death !"
"Stone me ?! have I told you about the death pill yet ?"

Or for example you where catapulted to the stone age...
"Ok guys, I've gathered some wood for a fire ... anyone got a lighter ? "
"Light-what ?!"

Renascence anyone ?
"He people, I draw you a very nice sketch of a micro-wave so you could make food faster...you just need that electricity thing..."
"Elect-what?!"
Off course there are some professions that could somehow contribute like chefs (food is always needed) and doctors, but without today's tech they could do very little.
Same goes for us the Tech guys - if the world will collapse and all electricity gone (out of resources - oil, coal etc..) then we will must change our professions.

Just think about it.

[swoll1980]

Hello !

About a week ago I read a very interesting and funny article in some non-English magazine - I want to share parts of this article with you...

Could we change the ancient world with today's knowledge ? most people could not.

In our Hi-Tech world and wide professions that didn't existed in the past there is a very little we could contribute to the ancient world.

Let's say that you where transferred to the dark ages - what could you say ?
"He guys, do you know the earth turns around the sun" ?
"Got any prof ?"
"Well...mmm...we got spaceships..awww..no...mmm...Galileo where are you ?".
"Show us prof or we gonna stone you to death !"
"Stone me ?! have I told you about the death pill yet ?"

Or for example you where catapulted to the stone age...
"Ok guys, I've gathered some wood for a fire ... anyone got a lighter ? "
"Light-what ?!"

Renascence anyone ?
"He people, I draw you a very nice sketch of a micro-wave so you could make food faster...you just need that electricity thing..."
"Elect-what?!"
Off course there are some professions that could somehow contribute like chefs (food is always needed) and doctors, but without today's tech they could do very little.
Same goes for us the Tech guys - if the world will collapse and all electricity gone (out of resources - oil, coal etc..) then we will must change our professions.

Just think about it.

Many things are very easy to make that could change their societies. Like electric generators, telescopes, lead acid batteries, light bulbs, guns, and way to many to list.

add: math, and physics.

[MaximB]

Many things are very easy to make that could change their societies. Like electric generators, telescopes, lead acid batteries, light bulbs, guns, and way to many to list.

Ok ... you are transferred to the ancient world - could you show them HOW to make those things with their current tech ?

[tgalati4]

Without the infrastructure it would be difficult to accelerate innovation.

A person with such wild ideas would be tossed, flaming out of the castle. If he survived, he would be stoned to death.

[swoll1980]

Ok ... you are transferred to the ancient world - could you show them HOW to make those things with their current tech ?

Sure electric generators, are extremely simple to make, and can be made from several different things. Math, and physics can follow you anywhere. Telescopes are easy to make. If they didn't have glass you could teach them how to make it. Obviously the biggest problem would be the language barrier.

[Moustacha]

Learn how to make really hot fires. Then you'll be able to melt iron and make steel. Soon as you got that you can start making steam engines and create an industrial revolution.

[MaximB]

Learn how to make really hot fires. Then you'll be able to melt iron and make steel. Soon as you got that you can start making steam engines and create an industrial revolution.

How many people in our word actually know how to make a REALLY hot fire ? could those people use their tech for it ?

Most of out professions are narrow - by that I mean that for example programmers know how to program, but without an hardware to work on (PC or Mac or whatever) they are useless, computer developers (I mean the actual workers not the corporations themselves) like Dell, and IBM wouldn't know how to create a generator and extract oil from the ground to power up them.
Everything is dependent on everything else.

[lloyd_b]

Ok ... you are transferred to the ancient world - could you show them HOW to make those things with their current tech ?

Could someone from today, dropped in a previous era with no tools, produce items equivalent to what's in use today? No way.

Could such a person, possessing the knowledge of today, *demonstrate* the principles of such devices? Sure.

An electric generator can be made by rotating a natural magnet inside a coil of wire.

A lead-acid battery just consists of lead plates, and an acid, both of which were readily available a long time ago.

A very simple lens can be created by putting a drop of water in a small hole.

Gunpowder, the basis of guns, is very simple to make. It's just a matter of knowing the (fairly common) ingredients and the ratio to mix them.

A *lot* of the basics of todays technology *could* have been developed 2000 years ago. In some cases, it *was* (the first primitive steam engine, for instance, was built by Heron of Alexander about 40 AD). The main barrier preventing these from being developed was psychological - the people of today have a mindset of taking technological innovation for granted, while the people of earlier eras considered such innovation to be something almost magical (and in some cases treated it as black magic!).

I do concede that the *average* person of today couldn't do it. Most people have no clue as to how the technology around them actually works, and haven't read about how that technology got started (*that* knowledge would be what's truly vital).

Lloyd B.

[Dragonbite]

I would starve to death or be stoned.

[starcraft.man]

Time travel doesn't exist. Kinda makes the whole thought exercise kinda moot...

[RiceMonster]

Time travel doesn't exist. Kinda makes the whole thought exercise kinda moot...

The idea isn't "HEY LETS GO CHANGE THE PAST", it's just interesting to think what would happen if we could go to the past.

[lovinglinux]

I believe most people wouldn't even survive for a week.

[Paqman]

Learn how to make really hot fires. Then you'll be able to melt iron and make steel. Soon as you got that you can start making steam engines and create an industrial revolution.

a) Making steel is a wee bit more complicated than that.
b) You don't need steel to make steam engines or the start the industrial revolution. Almost everything in the 19th century (eg: steam trains, bridges, the Eiffel Tower) was good old fashioned iron. Mass production of steel is a pretty recent thing.

Having said that, being able to reliably produce large quantities of steel relatively cheaply would give you a huge advantage in pretty much every society up until quite recently. It'd allow you to make good tools, which would improve virtually every other kind of technology you turned your hand to. Especially if you built up your tech base to the point you could build machine tools.

Personally though, I think the easiest and most significant thing you could change would be hygiene. If you took modern knowledge of hygiene and disease back to older societies you'd be able to revolutionise them fairly easily. Just providing good sewage handling and clean water to a society would improve life expectancy, reduce infant mortality and generally improve public health and productivity immensely.

[Chilli Bob]

Going back in time won't be a problem, as long as you are dressed appropriately....

http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=QW-CHEATSHEET&Category_Code=QW

[Tipped OuT]

I believe most people wouldn't even survive for a week.

They'd starve to death because there's no McDonald's and eventually get eaten by cannibals.

[monsterstack]

You don't really need to go back all the way to the ancient world to feel all alienated and useless. Take a laptop back with you one hundred years ago and try showing the folk your piece of kit almost entirely comprised of things that haven't been invented yet.

[Tipped OuT]

You don't really need to go back all the way to the ancient world to feel all alienated and useless. Take a laptop back with you one hundred years ago and try showing the folk your piece of kit almost entirely comprised of things that haven't been invented yet.

Then either one of the two will happen.

1. They'll think you're god and worship you forever.

2. They'll think you're a witch and burn you to death.

[monsterstack]

Then either one of the two will happen.

1. They'll think you're god and worship you forever.

2. They'll think you're a witch and burn you to death.

Folk in 1909 weren't really all that primitive, y'know :P

[cmay]

Or for example you where catapulted to the stone age...
"Ok guys, I've gathered some wood for a fire ... anyone got a lighter ? "
"Light-what ?!"
i can light fire with no matches or lighter. its a hassle and its not easy in Denmark where sometimes i have to give up since the wood is not dry enough and i do not practice as such. but if you are one of those experts in how to survive in nature then you know where the dry stuff is and how to light it if needed.

other than that there has been findings of somethings that we could not make today even with modern tools.

the skull made out of crystal is so exact a copy of a human skull and can not be recreated by any means using the tools we think they have had. or even in a sane manner using our own tools for that matter with out taking too long.

they have tried to recreate the building of the pyramids and even with our tools it fails.
there has been ways of creating silver and gold jewels and things out of glass vulcano stones that no one knows how to do today.

i think that giving all our modern world approach we alienate our self leaving the practical knowledge of many things up to a few people .

i as young when i learned to slaughter chickens. i was even younger when i learned to build a fire with only one match. when i can today i eat stuff from a tree or bush around where i live. its natural to me to have my fingers into the dirt sometimes and i live by nature as i did when i was working on a farm years ago.,

still there is loads of things from the past times that i cant figure out how they have done. i think when looking at the oldest pipe and the oldest building we found in Denmark that they where more skilled than we think they where.

[monsterstack]

i can light fire with no matches or lighter. its a hassle and its not easy in Denmark where sometimes i have to give up since the wood is not dry enough and i do not practice as such. but if you are one of those experts in how to survive in nature then you know where the dry stuff is and how to light it if needed.

other than that there has been findings of somethings that we could not make today even with modern tools.

the skull made out of crystal is so exact a copy of a human skull and can not be recreated by any means using the tools we think they have had. or even in a sane manner using our own tools for that matter with out taking too long.

they have tried to recreate the building of the pyramids and even with our tools it fails.
there has been ways of creating silver and gold jewels and things out of glass vulcano stones that no one knows how to do today.

i think that giving all our modern world approach we alienate our self leaving the practical knowledge of many things up to a few people .

i as young when i learned to slaughter chickens. i was even younger when i learned to build a fire with only one match. when i can today i eat stuff from a tree or bush around where i live. its natural to me to have my fingers into the dirt sometimes and i live by nature as i did when i was working on a farm years ago.,

still there is loads of things from the past times that i cant figure out how they have done. i think when looking at the oldest pipe and the oldest building we found in Denmark that they where more skilled than we think they where.

This is one of the reasons people like the Masons turned out to be so powerful in early times. Knowledge could only be passed on in the most rudimentary ways. Simply knowing how to build stuff was a source of immense power. Of course, from the ancient world, barely any remnants of this knowledge remain. The printing presses pretty much changed all that. I wonder if the knowledge we have today will be available to people thousands of years from now. As everything slowly goes digital, how can we be sure? A great many of the early computer games would have been lost forever if it were not for illegal dumping of ROMs, for instance. If you have a physics text-book stored as pdf, who's to say there will even be anything capable of reading such a format a thousand years from now?

[LowSky]

Well I think I would do alright, you need to use what you learned from history, math, and chemistry, physics classes. Everything else goes out the window I would think.

For instance first issue would be language. Knowing Latin would be the best option as it was a language used exclusively for thousands of years for courts, churches and empires.

There is technology that could work in ancient times, we could create things that were not known, like balloon and fixed wing flight. electric generators, radio, weapon creation.. I got plenty of things I think I could make.

The farther in time you go the more advanced I could be. Thank goodness I took those engineering classes. Me in early Roman/Greek times, I could build war machines that wouldn't be used until the middle ages. imagine the Greeks using rockets, heck imagine the Greeks knowing the concept of a bellows, for iron and steel making. Imagine the Romans learning of publicly traded companies. Or circumnavigating the world centuries before Magellan. All things we could do because of our knowledge (well maybe my knowledge, there are too many uneducated people in the world)

[Dragonbite]

This is one of the reasons people like the Masons turned out to be so powerful in early times. Knowledge could only be passed on in the most rudimentary ways. Simply knowing how to build stuff was a source of immense power. Of course, from the ancient world, barely any remnants of this knowledge remain. The printing presses pretty much changed all that. I wonder if the knowledge we have today will be available to people thousands of years from now. As everything slowly goes digital, how can we be sure? A great many of the early computer games would have been lost forever if it were not for illegal dumping of ROMs, for instance. If you have a physics text-book stored as pdf, who's to say there will even be anything capable of reading such a format a thousand years from now?

That's why we need open source! :D

[RiceMonster]

They'd starve to death because there's no McDonald's and eventually get eaten by cannibals.

So wait, if there was no McDonalds, what did people eat?

[jimv]

Maxim, I would like to note that you look somewhat like a caveman.

[Tipped OuT]

So wait, if there was no McDonalds, what did people eat?
It says in my post. The keyword is:

Cannibals.
:lolflag:

I know, I know, I'm just kidding.

[zmjjmz]

Upon being transported back in time, my first question would be about the possible disruptions in the space time continuum that I just caused.

[sisco311]

Upon being transported back in time, my first question would be about the possible disruptions in the space time continuum that I just caused.

My first question would be about my mental status. ;)

[Dragonbite]

My first question would be about my mental status. ;)

My first question would be how to get back! It's not like the technology is just lying around there!




... or is it? Atlantis anyone? aliens making the Pyramids? hmm..

[Mark76]

Ah! The Strangerverse ;)

Next up... Linus Torvalds ISOTed from 1992 to 1982 by Alien Space Bats.

[zmjjmz]

Ah! The Strangerverse ;)

Next up... Linus Torvalds ISOTed from 1992 to 1982 by Alien Space Bats.

They're out there I tell you! THEY ARE OUT THERE!

[el.otro]

Well I think I would do alright, you need to use what you learned from history, math, and chemistry, physics classes. Everything else goes out the window I would think.

For instance first issue would be language. Knowing Latin would be the best option as it was a language used exclusively for thousands of years for courts, churches and empires.

There is technology that could work in ancient times, we could create things that were not known, like balloon and fixed wing flight. electric generators, radio, weapon creation.. I got plenty of things I think I could make.

The farther in time you go the more advanced I could be. Thank goodness I took those engineering classes. Me in early Roman/Greek times, I could build war machines that wouldn't be used until the middle ages. imagine the Greeks using rockets, heck imagine the Greeks knowing the concept of a bellows, for iron and steel making. Imagine the Romans learning of publicly traded companies. Or circumnavigating the world centuries before Magellan. All things we could do because of our knowledge (well maybe my knowledge, there are too many uneducated people in the world)

You are assuming you'll go back to Europe....how about China? How about a different time, when there was no europe, for instance? When all your latin and knowledge wouldn't get you beyond the simple communication two animals may have...(I mean you and the other animal, like we all humans are)? You sound like you know nothing when you say "well maybe my knowledge, there are too many uneducated people in the world". Too much ego.

------------------

On the other hand, I think a basic knowledge of the world, especially our MISTAKES, would REALLY change the past. Imagine going "green" from year 2009 BC! No, really, I mean going beyond the hype; the world could be much better, and I would also say the difference is on what an "average person" is for us, a city-dweller? then yeah, it'd be hard. But I know many people in colombia who can make thread (not the forum kind) from plants and cut wood with rudimentary rock materials, and even if it's not as precise, one invention leads to another, and so on...

I made a short story long.

[drawkcab]

Hegel is required reading for this topic

http://www.humanismus.com/_/Hegels_Phenomenology_of_Spirit_files/shapeimage_1.png

[Paqman]

other than that there has been findings of somethings that we could not make today even with modern tools.

the skull made out of crystal is so exact a copy of a human skull and can not be recreated by any means using the tools we think they have had. or even in a sane manner using our own tools for that matter with out taking too long.


None of the crystal skulls in existence have ever been confirmed as being made in antiquity. It's almost certain that they're modern fakes.



they have tried to recreate the building of the pyramids and even with our tools it fails.

There's many competing theories about the exact techniques used to build the pyramids, but none of them involve any kind of special technology. There was a lot of very clever engineering thinking that went into them, but the tech level was pretty basic. It's a testament to what you can do with basics like water, stone, sand, bronze and (last but not least) raw human muscle.

[steveneddy]

IF we were to send someone back in time for this purpose, I believe it would be a learned person that would know how to utilize our current knowledge to "accelerate" the people's he/she was sent to "educate".

You would have to start with "discovering" the current level of technology and work with and expand that.

I think it is a ludicrous idea to go to the Middle Ages and create a PC. Why? That technology would be useless in that time for many different reasons.

Use flint or a sharp rock, make a spear. Make fire to cook. Learn where to mine raw metals and smelt those metals. Make metal tipped weapons for procuring better food. If you could find copper and refine that you could make a generator. For what? Electrocute fish in a pond or body of water for more food. Make a steam engine to pump water to a remote village. The list could go on.

One would singlehandedly have to take on the responsibility of accelerating society.
Don't you think that technology has really F-ed it up for the world in general?

I could go back to a simpler time and survive. Could you?

[Blacklightbulb]

If one you be catapulted back to and earlier era I fairly think that it would be useless to show to those people how to build a generator or a telescope. Every invention builds on others and in turn each invention is invented because of the knowledge of the inventor.

If you teach a hairy stone age 4 foot man to build a generator that would be useless since he has neither the need for electricity (without electrical appliances) and nor the time to fiddle with it. He must spend his day gathering food.

So YES we could help the ancient world with today's knowledge! HOW?

1. Get a list of all invention since that era sorted by the date they happened
2. Spend your life teaching maths, physics and languages (and other knowledge) to these people.
3. When they have enough knowledge to understand to build a certain object show them how to build it instead of waiting for them to discover/invent it.

Then you'll return to 2009 and you will see either
1. A more advanced world with newer technologies
2. A much more backwards world since they didn't really learn anything because they were spoon fed.

Anyway time travel shouldn't really be bothered with since we don't even have enough knowledge to deny or reassure it's possibility more over to render it possible.\

anyways..............

[MikeTheC]

Go rent "The Final Countdown"...

While not exactly in the vein of this thread, it definitely does bring up good points about the ramifications of changing history.

[Giant Speck]

http://adsoftheworld.com/files/timetravel.jpg

[Lateforgym]

Do you know how many people died from malnutrition? Simply introducing the concept of crop rotation would have saved millions. There is no technology in that and the lives of the peopel save would have influenced history.

The next time you watch National Geographic, In Search of, or any study on ancient civilizations that "mysteriously disappeared" (complete with spooky music), you can say "Crop rotation!" skip the 2 hour show and surf to the next channel.

[MikeTheC]

http://adsoftheworld.com/files/timetravel.jpg

Hey! How'd you get my photo?!?

[wmcbrine]

I'd start with hot-air balloons, movable type, and bicycles.

The Romans would've loved railroads, but I think I'd need some help to develop a locomotive.

[MikeTheC]

Actually, imagine using the world's deadliest joke (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnfFqBz43fA) on them.