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

scientificamerican.com

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

#41

Post by rwmj »

Razengan wrote: post #17
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…

> I often like to fantasize how would I fare if I found myself suddenly transported into medieval times or earlier I wonder the same. If I was suddenly teleported to the middle of a forest, without anything, not even my shoes and clothes, and no chance of any contact with civilization again, what SHOULD my first few tasks even be?? Imagine a modern human, ideal in health and strength and faculties, and immune to dise…

If it was one human, they'd die off before reaching any significant technological level. However someone who's been on a survival course should be able to survive for the length of their natural life (minus modern medicine), the first few days being the key.

Transporting a man and a woman doesn't help much either because there probably wouldn't be sufficient genetic variety to produce a viable species. I think I read you need thousands of humans to do that, and then there's enough spare capacity beyond mere survival to ensure that knowledge gets passed on.

There is a book about all this (a rather depressing book actually): https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/03/knowledge-how-...

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

#42

Post by knz »

Razengan wrote: post #17
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…

> I often like to fantasize how would I fare if I found myself suddenly transported into medieval times or earlier I wonder the same. If I was suddenly teleported to the middle of a forest, without anything, not even my shoes and clothes, and no chance of any contact with civilization again, what SHOULD my first few tasks even be?? Imagine a modern human, ideal in health and strength and faculties, and immune to dise…

I'm not sure I would have the goal of the "modern world" in mind if transported to a pristine planet! Millions of people want the technology but not the stress and pollution of the rat race. A small remote coastal settlement in a temperate climate with some technology to make life easier (fishing nets, agricultural tools) sounds ok!

Of course the daily grind there is probably food production and medical issues.

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

#43

Post by Houshalter »

bhaak wrote: post #31
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.

The Romans absolutely used wheels. Those roads were so well travelled with wagons that there are still grooves cut into them where the wheels wore away the pavement. The roman armies would have used large numbers of wagons to carry all the food and supplies an army needs, which is the main reason they needed roads.

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

#44

Post by vanderZwan »

> However, from that place, it seems to have spread so rapidly across Eurasia and the Middle East that experts cannot say for sure where it originated.

Well the very nature of the wheel itself probably helped with that - I wonder if that holds true for all transportation-related inventions?

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

#45

Post by noamyoungerm »

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…

> the whole "Earth is the centre of Universe" thing that held back modern thinking

This says much more about how we dismiss ancient civilizations as inferior than it does about ancient civilizations themselves.

The fact is, the geocentric model was an excellent one, able to explain all observations at the time in a sensible and straightforward way. Admittedly, more data helped to develop the heliocentric model, but there were valid scientific criticisms against that model at the time. In particular, it took Kepler to provide truly sensible and strong arguments in favor of heliocentrism.

The geocentric model is so good that even today it is often the sensible model to use when thinking about some astronomical problems. I hate to hear it being dismissed as 'wrong' - because from a physical perspective the two are simply geometrical transformations of one another, they are both 'right'. It's simply that one of them is simpler than the other for most problems.

But most of all, I hate hearing people say it 'held back thinking', because I assure you that the people doing the thinking back then were just as capable of doing good, logical, rational thinking as we are today, and didn't need anyone to claim they were too stupid to think critically for themselves about the scientific understanding of the time.

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

#46

Post by Retric »

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?…

One consideration is the Barring straight is very narrow compared to other ocean passages, so people may have regularly crossed each side without thinking 'new land'!

From their perspective the map looks like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumpolar_peoples

From their perspective North America is simply yet another settled area.

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

#47

Post by ap22213 »

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 happen naturally when there's enough population density and permanent structures. Of course, those things require agriculture first (or at least plentiful, permanent food sources like fish).

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

#48

Post by Razengan »

knz wrote: post #42
Razengan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I often like to fantasize how would I fare if I found myself suddenly transported into medieval times or earlier I wonder the same. If I was suddenly teleported to the middle of a forest, without anything, not even my shoes and clothes, and no chance of any contact with civilization again, what SHOULD my first few tasks even be?? Imagine a modern human, ideal in health and strength and faculties, and immune to dise…

I'm not sure I would have the goal of the "modern world" in mind if transported to a pristine planet! Millions of people want the technology but not the stress and pollution of the rat race. A small remote coastal settlement in a temperate climate with some technology to make life easier (fishing nets, agricultural tools) sounds ok! Of course the daily grind there is probably food production and medical issues.

My post was intended to be two questions:

1. What are the chances of any us surviving outside of human civilization if all technology was stripped from us, even if we had memorized all of humanity's combined knowledge?

2. How long would it take to replicate current technology from scratch, if all the research was already done for you, and you were basically immortal?

By "from scratch" I mean skipping the creating-the-universe part, just starting without any preexisting tools other than what you may find in nature.

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

#49

Post by Houshalter »

rwmj wrote: post #40
lkrubner wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Christians prohibited loans and banking. Jews were able to practice it though.
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