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Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

arstechnica.com

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Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#71

Post by qwerty456127 »

Let me suggest a nonsensical idea just for fun: let's found a scientific institute (staffed with volunteers and funded with donations, obviously) purposefully limited to conduct all their tasks (actual science, administrative chores, living) with stone age tools only. Or perhaps also with medieval and whatever they manage to build themselves using such.

It would be very curious to see what modern, educated, exclusively high-IQ (implied from them having managed to graduate in science) humans can achieve in a stone age setting.

Ideas of outcomes possible, experiments conductable and apparata buildable this way are welcome :-)

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#72

Post by tame3902 »

defrost wrote: post #69
tame3902 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpick: Bloomeries generally don't melt iron. They are just hot enough to reduce iron oxide to iron. Melting iron is a relatively young technology. From Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomery ): "Inside the furnace, carbon monoxide from the incomplete combustion of the charcoal reduces the iron oxides in the ore to metallic iron without melting the ore; this allows the bloomery to operate at lower temper…

It's a fair point but pragmatically a nitpick indeed - for a full four thousand years people have worked iron into tools without melting it through the wonder of a chemical reaction that sidesteps the issue. While we're here I guess we should also point out that glass blowing furnaces don't melt silicon, they dissolve it into a flux of other stuff to make a gooey glob we call molten glass. The original question posed…

I just wanted to make sure that it's clear for everybody. People seem to think that melting iron is easy. All the time I see smiths in movies and TV shows running around with molten iron in a medieval setting and even casting swords. It drives me nuts.

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#73

Post by luxuryballs »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #71

Let me suggest a nonsensical idea just for fun: let's found a scientific institute (staffed with volunteers and funded with donations, obviously) purposefully limited to conduct all their tasks (actual science, administrative chores, living) with stone age tools only. Or perhaps also with medieval and whatever they manage to build themselves using such. It would be very curious to see what modern, educated, exclusive…

Do we get lots of servants?

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#74

Post by qwerty456127 »

luxuryballs wrote: post #73
qwerty456127 wrote: post #71

Let me suggest a nonsensical idea just for fun: let's found a scientific institute (staffed with volunteers and funded with donations, obviously) purposefully limited to conduct all their tasks (actual science, administrative chores, living) with stone age tools only. Or perhaps also with medieval and whatever they manage to build themselves using such. It would be very curious to see what modern, educated, exclusive…

Do we get lots of servants?

As soon as somebody volunteers to serve this way. Of course there can be a hierarchy of a sort and specialization like in any other institute. Some do more science, some do more chores, depending on what they can and feel like doing.

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#75

Post by BiteCode_dev »

WalterBright wrote: post #32
ahazred8ta wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was one fellow who smelted copper ore and tin ore, made copper wire and a vinegar battery, and made a working telegraph that could have been built any time since 3000 BC.

To make use of telegraphy, one would need to know how to read & write. The most useful inventions in history: 1. reading & writing 2. paper 3. printing press 4. computers & networking Note that they're all about preserving and sharing information.

Yeah, those fire, pots and crops where so useless compared to those. And the wheel? Na, it's not that important.

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#76

Post by jdjdbw »

Aardwolf wrote: post #65

If an archeologist from the far future finds these, they'll be utterly confused

I don't think so, for the future it would be easy to recreate what the situation was, I could determine that they are tools recreated by scientists from the past.

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#77

Post by jdjdbw »

I'm off topic, but can you imagine that in the future there could be an electronic device and through advanced studies on material, atoms and quantum, they could recreate all the information that said device once had? I imagine they could study the Internet of the past even if the backups were lost.

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#78

Post by WalterBright »

emilfihlman wrote: post #70
WalterBright wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make use of telegraphy, one would need to know how to read & write. The most useful inventions in history: 1. reading & writing 2. paper 3. printing press 4. computers & networking Note that they're all about preserving and sharing information.

You are overestimating. Even if there was a working phone network and phones when we were hunter gatherers, this wouldn't allow us to grow cities. All inventions work off each other, but if we count them without prerequisites: Agriculture (farming / animal domestication etc), ie being able to quite reliably produce a lot of food, is the most important innovation and invention for humanity. Next, still not information…

> the industrial revolution and engines and mass scale production

This was enabled by the printing press. Immediately prior to the industrial revolution, printers printed how-to manuals on every topic they could think of.

It's not a surprise that the industrial revolution occurred in the area that invented and widely adopted printing presses.

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#79

Post by WalterBright »

Qwertious wrote: post #43
WalterBright wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make use of telegraphy, one would need to know how to read & write. The most useful inventions in history: 1. reading & writing 2. paper 3. printing press 4. computers & networking Note that they're all about preserving and sharing information.

Weird how that list doesn't include the state, coinage, or farming. Or animal domestication. Or smelting iron. Or steam engines and machine tools. Computers are basically irrelevant but networking would be huge - being able to communicate near-instantly across large distances was possibly the single biggest limiting factor for the size of empires in agrarian societies (other than food).

The emergence of the state probably could not have happened without writing. Steam engines and machine tools could not have happened without the printing press. Networking (telegraph) was the predecessor technology of computers.

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#80

Post by pi-e-sigma »

tdudhhu wrote: post #62
ahazred8ta wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was one fellow who smelted copper ore and tin ore, made copper wire and a vinegar battery, and made a working telegraph that could have been built any time since 3000 BC.

Why 3000 BC? Isn't it true that if we applied today's knowledge it could also be built millions of years ago? I can understand it means something like: it could be built with tools and materials they had 3000 BC, but isn't it also true that knowledge was able to create different tools and different materials?

I think the parent meant that it could be built by 'modern' people, homo sapiens sapiens, with the same intelligence as people living today
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