It was in this milieu that the philosopher Pythagoras received his mathematical education on Samos. The Temple of Hera had just been built — it was the largest stone temple in the world at that point. He would have been exposed to some of the most ambitious engineering communities in the world!
Tunnel of Eupalinos
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Re: Tunnel of Eupalinos
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Re: Tunnel of Eupalinos
#24>The Eupalinian aqueduct was used as an aqueduct for 1100 years What things today will be used for 1100 years?
In the tunnel category, maybe the tunnel under the English Channel, it's pretty impressive in its own right.
I wonder if anyone has done any studies on how many years it could stand unused without maintenance before some event would flood it.
Re: Tunnel of Eupalinos
#25It's outstanding how advanced the ancient Greeks were. What characteristics allowed their civilization to flourish so rapidly in science to the extent that they weren't matched in Europe until the Renaissance?
Deep, grounded answers are lacking because we don't have something like a theory of social/cultural evolution.
Many potential factors are clearly not relevant: was not a major population center like Egypt, was not particularly rich in resources, was not a serious military might like Persia (except, though, in maritime context), was not centralized (quarreling city-states). Economically it was based on slave labor like the entire region. It was an extrovert society (trading a lot, establishing seaside colonies all over the Med etc), but so were the Phoenicians.
Maybe in the end it was just a non-linear cascade that is hard to explain "linearly" after the fact. Maybe using their interactions to copy and cross-fertilize what all the pre-existing cultures had to offer created a domino effect where one thing led to another (eg. improved script -> better education -> smarter logistics -> more spare time -> more philosopher-scientists -> more mathematics, you get the picture).
Its equally important to understand what caused the eventual decline. The depressing fact that "progress" is not monotonic. Could we be heading toward a new middle ages?
Re: Tunnel of Eupalinos
#26>The Eupalinian aqueduct was used as an aqueduct for 1100 years What things today will be used for 1100 years?
Probably Perl, though it will continue to bring surprise to those who find it has been gluing their systems together.
Re: Tunnel of Eupalinos
#27It is telling that in the early middle ages they apparently stopped clearing the tunnel, letting it silt up, similar to many large Roman buildings. Goes to show that the path of human history is not always one of progress.
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#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Assuming no AI takeover, massive technological increase, civilizational collapse due to dysgenics and lack of cheap energy, etc.
Even with all those things, the canals might still be used in 1,000 years. None of those things change the likely truth that floating physical goods is cheaper than land transport and those canals are at globally strategic points. The AI will have to move goods, technology change will still need to move goods, civilisations will rise and fall and still need to move goods. Even if energy gets more expensive, trade wil…
For every point except AI takeover, I agree.
AI takeover isn't well defined, and by extension it isn't assured to be sensible — if a narrow AI is made to optimise the heck out of [high contagious, short latency period, long incubation period, high lethality, can form stable reservoirs in other species], it can be good at that without any long term planning about what happens next.
Conversely, we can also consider one that solves Von Neumann replication, and then it's less than a century to disassemble the planet Mercury, and from there a week or two for each of Venus and Earth. Assuming it had that as a goal.
Re: Tunnel of Eupalinos
#29It's outstanding how advanced the ancient Greeks were. What characteristics allowed their civilization to flourish so rapidly in science to the extent that they weren't matched in Europe until the Renaissance?
Deep, grounded answers are lacking because we don't have something like a theory of social/cultural evolution. Many potential factors are clearly not relevant: was not a major population center like Egypt, was not particularly rich in resources, was not a serious military might like Persia (except, though, in maritime context), was not centralized (quarreling city-states). Economically it was based on slave labor lik…
[deleted]
Re: Tunnel of Eupalinos
#30It's outstanding how advanced the ancient Greeks were. What characteristics allowed their civilization to flourish so rapidly in science to the extent that they weren't matched in Europe until the Renaissance?
It could be a selection effect too. The Greek world is unusually well-studied. This tunnel was discovered and excavated in the 1800s by German and French archaeologists.
It helps that the Greek world was close to Europe and has a large literary legacyy (partially because of continuity through Rome).
Compare that to ancient Mesoamerican or African or Indian civilizations, which have a relatively shorter period of intense study, but every decade we seem to come away more impressed.
For example, Nazca puquios are still a bit of a mystery but are extremely sophisticated tunnel and irrigation systems: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puquios