Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#31

Post by bhaak » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 2:25 PM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #4

I heard the story differently. Wheels are only really useful if you have good enough streets to use them on and building streets is a huge upfront investment. It is also a chicken egg problem - wheels are only useful with streets and streets are only useful for wheels. Without streets you are better of carrying your stuff around than trying to push it around on wheels in natural terrain. That is also why the wheel fi…

Streets are also useful if you don't use them with wheels.

The Roman empire made good use for it with their armies (of course, also for trade) and Roman soldiers were mostly on foot and a few on horses.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#32

Post by Houshalter » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 2:26 PM UTC

One of the most fascinating books I ever picked up from the library was Ancient Inventions (https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Inventions-Peter-James/dp/034...), which goes over the details of stuff like this.

The historical figure that strikes me as "most likely to be a time traveller" is Archimedes, who designed incredibly advanced machines that destroyed the Roman fleet and protected his home city. Sadly he was accidentally killed during the war. The Romans wanted to capture him and use him for their own purposes. It's possible that could have changed history quite a bit.

Heron of Alexandria is another candidate that gets a lot of space in that book. He invented the first steam engine way before his time. But also many other insanely elaborate mechanical devices. Including an entirely mechanical little theater, with mechanical puppets and music.

Unfortunately almost all his inventions were for entertainment value only. Sometimes I wonder if the greatest inventor of our time might be applying his work to video game engines.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#33

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 2:31 PM UTC

Hermel wrote: post #6

Also, the wheel is not very helpful without compact, step-free pathes.

Water wheel, spinning wheel, pottery wheel, grinding wheel (eg for wheat flour), ... seems useful.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#34

Post by ekianjo » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

KineticLensman wrote: post #10

probably_wrong wrote: post #2

I often like to fantasize how would I fare if I found myself suddenly transported into medieval times or earlier (spoiler: poorly). Articles like this make me appreciate even more how little difference there is between us and humans thousands of years ago. I wouldn't have figured out how to make a working wheel, and I've seen one. I have no idea where I picked up the idea that "ancient civilizations were dumb", but t…

The "what would I try to invent?" question one is fascinating. If I found myself transported back to Roman times, I'd aim to make a lens. The Romans had glass so the raw material is there. With a lens you can fairly quickly go a telescope, which has immediate military application, so would perhaps be widely adopted. Astronomy might then follow, heading off the whole "Earth is the centre of Universe" thing that held b…

Greeks had no telescope yet some of them had already devised that the Earth was orbiting around the Sun and also calculated the diameter of the Earth with reasonable accuracy.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#35

Post by bhaak » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

The article surprised me in that it didn't mentioned the potter's wheel even though the principles are mostly the same.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#36

Post by Razengan » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

Is there any realistically conceivable alternate-history/universe where cable-suspended wheel-less trams (like [1][2][3] but closer to ground level) became the dominant method of transportation instead of huge roads and cars?

It's something I've been musing on to incorporate into some fiction, inspired by all the recent news and discussions about self-driving cars and the prospect of shared fleets.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_transport

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_tramway

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondola_lift

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#37

Post by Houshalter » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 2:36 PM UTC

KineticLensman wrote: post #10

probably_wrong wrote: post #2

I often like to fantasize how would I fare if I found myself suddenly transported into medieval times or earlier (spoiler: poorly). Articles like this make me appreciate even more how little difference there is between us and humans thousands of years ago. I wouldn't have figured out how to make a working wheel, and I've seen one. I have no idea where I picked up the idea that "ancient civilizations were dumb", but t…

The "what would I try to invent?" question one is fascinating. If I found myself transported back to Roman times, I'd aim to make a lens. The Romans had glass so the raw material is there. With a lens you can fairly quickly go a telescope, which has immediate military application, so would perhaps be widely adopted. Astronomy might then follow, heading off the whole "Earth is the centre of Universe" thing that held b…

I love this game. I think I would send the idea of plant breeding. They had this idea to some extent, but I don't think there was big public, long term effort to breed new crops or get much higher yields. If you get modern crops faster, you have larger populations, which leads to industrialization sooner. This isn't just limited to food crops, it's possible ancients could have bred plants and animals for many useful purposes.

Slightly relevant, what information would you send to the past if you had a phone that could communicate backwards in time? But there's a catch, any idea you send is converted to the closest analogue in ancient times. So if you tell them about the scientific method, they will just think about religion. http://lesswrong.com/lw/h5/archimedess_chronophone/

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#38

Post by acjohnson55 » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 2:38 PM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #16

dualogy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Streets? Where we came from, we needed no.. streets ;) I mean, didn't "streets" emerge really from commonly-travelled paths carved by feet and horse hooves and time, and really most non-paved paths are quite fine for most wheels? Perhaps they last longer on pavement, but other than that..

I didn't want to imply pavement when I said streets. The question is what commonly traveled paths look like before the wheel. If they were just desire paths, then they were not suitable for carts because they are to narrow even if they were used with horses or other animals instead of just walking. Could they already have been wide enough for example because of several people walking next to each other? Certainly, bu…

Packs of large animals carve impressively road-like paths between their points of interest in the scrub.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#39

Post by knz » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 2:41 PM UTC

KineticLensman wrote: post #10

probably_wrong wrote: post #2

I often like to fantasize how would I fare if I found myself suddenly transported into medieval times or earlier (spoiler: poorly). Articles like this make me appreciate even more how little difference there is between us and humans thousands of years ago. I wouldn't have figured out how to make a working wheel, and I've seen one. I have no idea where I picked up the idea that "ancient civilizations were dumb", but t…

The "what would I try to invent?" question one is fascinating. If I found myself transported back to Roman times, I'd aim to make a lens. The Romans had glass so the raw material is there. With a lens you can fairly quickly go a telescope, which has immediate military application, so would perhaps be widely adopted. Astronomy might then follow, heading off the whole "Earth is the centre of Universe" thing that held b…

Was glass and the tools needed to make a lens readily available to people then? Or would you nedd to time travel with substantial wealth?

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#40

Post by rwmj » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

lkrubner wrote: post #30

KineticLensman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "what would I try to invent?" question one is fascinating. If I found myself transported back to Roman times, I'd aim to make a lens. The Romans had glass so the raw material is there. With a lens you can fairly quickly go a telescope, which has immediate military application, so would perhaps be widely adopted. Astronomy might then follow, heading off the whole "Earth is the centre of Universe" thing that held b…

The problem is with the assumption behind "which fairly quickly leads to the discovery of microscopic organisms". In your scenario, who learns about microscopic organisms, and when? As a point of comparison, who discovered the existence of North America? Was it Christopher Columbus in 1492? Or was it the Vikings in 900 AD? Or was it some mix of people who first melded together in Beringia, somewhere around 20,000 BC?…

So maybe the thing to invent is banking?