You do not need powerful magnets to make a generator. You use whatever permanent magnet you have and put an electromagnet in parallel with it. When it starts turning, the output power from the permanent magnet can be fed to the electromagnet and the generator pulls itself up by its own bootstraps.
Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?
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Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?
#32> I don’t think the Romans could have built the analytical engine or other purely mechanical computer because of the tolerances required. I don’t know much about their manufacturing abilities, but I know they didn’t do a lot of it and imported most things.
But yet the greeks produced machines of incredible precision and function circa 150 to 100 BC.
http://www.antikythera-mechanism.gr/
And whether they imported them or not, clearly the ability to manufacture to such precision did exist.
Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?
#33They absolutely could have built a digital computer and much more. He's slightly underestimating Roman enginuity for delicate manufacturing. Consider for example the Cage cup[1]. It's an exquisite piece of art and creativity and, all things cosidered, engineering as well due to the very tight tolerences and detail.
There's a lot more to progress than just the capacity for great leaps in engineering and sciences. Often times, there's a bit of luck and timing (Newton's apple and, of course, Newton himself) and also a societal willingness to promote new kinds of thinking.
The Antikythera mechanism is thought to be more a Greek invention than Roman[2]. And I've felt the Greeks were more appreciative of experimentation than the Romans who were driven more by the necesities of war and maintenance of the empire and they may be better candidates (with perhaps some Roman help) to go about making a proper computer.
We also need to understand that certain concepts in mathematics didn't exist in Roman mathematics at the time, like Zero (before Ptolemy)[3], which in addition to meaning "nothing" as quantity it also means "something" as a value.
We also know the Romans traded extensively in the Middle East which means they could have potentially been exposed to very early experiments with electricity[4]. While the age of "Bagdad Battery" like devices are debatable, it's not too much of a stretch to see ancient alchemists experimenting... more than likely the Greeks.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cage_cup
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_wreck
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_(number)
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_BatteryRe: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the end of the Western Roman Empire in 300AD they became monotheistic. The interesting piece is, what if they had been able to eliminate all the civil wars? In that case their would have been a unified force to resist the rise and spread of Islam. Islam filled a void left by the collapse of the Roman Empire even though the Western Empire still existed.
I'm not sure that would have helped that much really. The Eastern Empire had been propping up the West for years with trade and money. By splitting off, the East was able to keep all that funding for itself. However, internal/external struggles, the Forth Crusade[1] and political intrigue ended up being the downfalls. I do think there is some "what if?" factor in all that. Such as what if the unified empire had not w…
One thing that's a bit confusing about "The Roman Empire" is that it bifurcates into the Western and Eastern empires, which were two wildly different polities with a shared name.
If you thought the gcc/egcs fork was a big deal ...
Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?
#35I think that mechanical computers are dismissed too quickly. Babbage was a perfectionist, and his machines were crippled by the reliance on decimal numbers. Konrad Zuse constructed his Z1[1] singlehandedly over a period of several years, based on a binary design. While the Z1 was only Turing Complete by technicality (it had the same instruction set as the relay-based Z3[2]) and it was fairly unreliable, it could have…
Yeah, I think this is an interesting idea, but it sort of inverts causality in a way. Could we have gone to the moon without a computer? To what extent are our advances since the advent of computation a result of computation itself? Put another way, if the Romans had invented a computer, would they have had our level of technology maybe just 100-200 years later?
It's likely that the greater forces responsible for the downfall of the Roman Empire would have happened regardless of what advanced technology they might have developed.
Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?
#36interesting analysis, but I would prefer if it were pitched as - could a time traveler to ancient rome build a computer or could you build a computer while lost in the woods?
The article talks about the knowledge of the romans, regarding making wires and such, but building core memory or a transistor successfully and stably requires a very high level of knowledge of electricity, magnetism and some important higher level abstractions for thinking about storing information.
So, I think no, to a very high degree of certainty the romans could not have built a computer. If a society has not developed light bulb, I don't think they understand electricity well enough for a computer.
Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that what Battestar Galactica and especially Caprica detail? Not that they're a research or high-brow look at that question, but all the same.
I honestly don't know, I never watched BSG. Was it set in early imperial Rome with particular reference to a fairly famous Jewish rabbi?
It takes a lot of cues from Mormon dogma, actually. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_mythological_refe...
The show's premise is an space-faring, industrialized, polytheistic society are surprised-attacked (and devastated, only a small band of humans survive) by Cylons, a sentient, monotheistic 'terrorist' group.
Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?
#38I'm going to do my usual OT hijacking and mention the upcoming novel of a friend. Her premise was: how would an industrialised, polytheistic society cope with monotheistic terrorism? It's an alternate history; the point of departure being that Archimedes of Syracuse was captured, taken to Rome and then funded (because the Romans were nothing if not practical). In her setting, the Romans are well into an industrial re…
Isn't that what Battestar Galactica and especially Caprica detail? Not that they're a research or high-brow look at that question, but all the same.
Now that you mention it, it matches up exactly with Caprica's plotline!
Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I honestly don't know, I never watched BSG. Was it set in early imperial Rome with particular reference to a fairly famous Jewish rabbi?
It takes a lot of cues from Mormon dogma, actually. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_mythological_refe... The show's premise is an space-faring, industrialized, polytheistic society are surprised-attacked (and devastated, only a small band of humans survive) by Cylons, a sentient, monotheistic 'terrorist' group.
Ah, I see.
I think it's a different premise though. The novel is about an uncontested superpower dealing with asymmetric conflict.
BSG seems to be more of a classic symmetric war to me.
Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?
#40Romans didn't have a number zero.
First thing that came into my head as well.