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

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

#101

Post by jeff_petersen » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 8:58 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #49

rwmj wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So maybe the thing to invent is banking?

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

IIRC Christians prohibited charging interest on loans (usury), not banking per se. I suppose a bank could be operated by Christians that simply accepted deposits and charged a sum for safekeeping with no loans whatsoever. I don't know that anything like that ever happened in practice, however, since anybody with enough money to require safekeeping in a vault probably had their own vault.

Likewise an interest free loan would be permissible, though there wouldn't be great incentives to offer them except to family members, for example.

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

#102

Post by lkrubner » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 9:17 PM UTC

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?

If you lend someone money, how would you get them to repay you? If you want to become a banker, then you need to sign contracts. You need an independent judiciary that will offer fair and impartial hearings. Above all else, you need equality before the law: the legal immunity of the nobility needs to be suspended. If someone fails to repay you, then you need to be able to take them to court.

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

#103

Post by lkrubner » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 9:53 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #46

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?…

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.

My whole point is that you don't know who "their" is. Please stop and think about who you mean when you use the word "their". Do you mean 1 person, or 2 people, or a 100, or a million? And the map you are linking to did not exist 20,000 years ago!

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

#104

Post by xenadu02 » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 10:01 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #53

Houshalter wrote: post #32

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 acci…

The Chinese may have had primitive steam engines before Heron of Alexandria: http://tellmewhyfacts.com/First-Steam-Engine-James-Watt That doesn't diminish Heron of Alexandria's accomplishments in any way, I highly doubt it was anything else than either an original invention or an independent re-invention. Super interesting historical figure, right up there with Archimedes and Leonardo da Vinci.

More proof that being the first to invent something is overrated. Execution matters as much as invention.

I think it also proves how much everyone (the most boot-strappiest included) rely on society and circumstance to provide a favorable environment.

Peter Thiel born 10 years earlier or later probably ends up as a nobody. Maybe successful, but certainly not a billionaire.

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

#105

Post by robbiep » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 10:02 PM UTC

mitochondrion wrote: post #98

yourapostasy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gingery did even better than showing how to bootstrap from a lathe. He showed how to bootstrap the lathe itself starting from building a charcoal foundry and chunks of raw metal. Be careful, though: this is a rabbit hole that draws maker-types like rare earth electromagnets. Once you read through Gingery's books, you can easily find yourself wandering down the library stacks and Net pulling up information about how t…

If you have a lathe now, how long will it take for that lathe to disintegrate into complete irreparable unusability? With a fertility rate of 1.3 among the intelligent (read: technologically capable) peoples of the world, we are far more likely to run out of people to maintain the technology than we are to run out of the energy to power it. Indeed, if you walk into any utility company or similar, who do you see doing…

That assumes that technologically capable people must be the progeny of technically/technologically capable people, which I put to you is not in any way, shape or form true.

Are you using the number of 1.3 from people with university education in the rich world? It seems a very narrow window through which to view humanity'a 'capable' people, who exist in all shapes and forms, all colours, on all continents, and often arise from deep poverty without any formal education, my grandfather for instance

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

#106

Post by inlineint » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 10:04 PM UTC

noamyoungerm wrote: post #45

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 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 t…

> because from a physical perspective the two are simply geometrical transformations of one another

Not really, at least if you want to keep simplicity of Newton's laws which are formulated for inertial reference frames. The reference frame in the heliocentric model is inertial, while in the geocentric one it is not.

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

#107

Post by xenadu02 » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

yourapostasy wrote: post #76

evincarofautumn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard of bootstrapping a machine shop from a lathe as well—apparently there’s a series about it, written by this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._Gingery

Gingery did even better than showing how to bootstrap from a lathe. He showed how to bootstrap the lathe itself starting from building a charcoal foundry and chunks of raw metal. Be careful, though: this is a rabbit hole that draws maker-types like rare earth electromagnets. Once you read through Gingery's books, you can easily find yourself wandering down the library stacks and Net pulling up information about how t…

We could recreate society relatively quickly if enough people and artifacts survived and human society itself recovered quickly enough. When people know for certain something is possible they are much more determined to make it happen. Bits of knowledge would trickle through the survivors and help accelerate the process.

Unfortunately during a collapse of society you very rarely find hospitable environments. By the time society itself recovers and has the resources to spare everyone who knew of the old world is dead and a lot of the artifacts are ruined or destroyed.

Seed vaults, storing equipment and books in salt mines, etc should prove extremely helpful if such a dire situation arises. It might take a lot longer to rebuild though because there won't be any cheap, easy oil to burn.

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

#108

Post by lmm » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 10:24 PM UTC

jeff_petersen wrote: post #101

Houshalter wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

IIRC Christians prohibited charging interest on loans (usury), not banking per se. I suppose a bank could be operated by Christians that simply accepted deposits and charged a sum for safekeeping with no loans whatsoever. I don't know that anything like that ever happened in practice, however, since anybody with enough money to require safekeeping in a vault probably had their own vault. Likewise an interest free loa…

What happened in the Islamic world was partnerships instead. If a merchant wanted to make a trade expedition funded by a banker, they'd set up the expedition as a partnership with the banker providing the funds and the merchant doing the work, splitting the profits, in a way that's economically equivalent to lending money at interest. Similarly, insurance syndicates tended to be organised as a bunch of merchants getting together and agreeing to pool a certain amount of funds that would be used to repay any of their losses.

(It works up to a point, but it's hard to scale. You can emulate a loan contract between two parties, but you can't have a bond market because the "loans" aren't tradeable)

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

#109

Post by rm445 » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 10:25 PM UTC

david-given wrote: post #94

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…

Actually, Terry Pratchett's _The Long Mars_ discusses this, to an extent. (In that setting, you can build a very simple machine --- powered by a potato, which actually makes sense in context --- which can take you to a parallel Earth. You can take what you can carry with you; but not iron, which stays behind. Turns out that setting up a society from scratch using only hand tools and brain power is kinda hard.)

Hmm. I've read the first book in the series (must get around to reading the rest), which is mainly exploration and doesn't focus too much on society-building, but as an engineer I'm not sure I buy that bootstrapping in a new Earth without bringing any iron/steel would be that difficult.

It would be an effort, but I think we could retool to bootstrap industry mainly using aluminium and copper alloys (engineering bronzes particularly are great materials). Some titanium and nickel alloys in the mix.

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

#110

Post by lmm » Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 10:25 PM UTC

dTal wrote: post #81

Houshalter wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Regarding Archimedes' chronophone, I am not sure that the premise is well-formed. I find I cannot predict what the chronophone will do because the notion of "closest analogue" is inherently ambiguous. In the worst case we cannot send any information back at all by definition. All that being said, assuming the chronophone will let me, I'd bring their attention to the idea of the printing press. It's easily made, the b…

I think it's a self-defeating idea, but a useful thought experiment. It makes you think about the abstract principles behind things that are good ideas, and then the more-abstract principles behind those.