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Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?

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Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?

#101

Post by cpressey »

cell303 wrote: post #97

Another way to read this article would be as follows: There has to be something big out there ready for us to build. Now consider (just consider) that one does not necessarily need a "plan" or a "theory" to build things, one should definitely do so, preferably something (seemingly) useless.

I build little things without a plan or theory (or at least, without a coherent one) fairly regularly, to see what I can learn from them (and because it's fun.)

But building something big? Without a plan or theory, it's hard to justify the time and cost of doing that.

(Kind of reminds me of the film Contact: the engineers just kind of built a machine from the plans that the aliens sent, without seeming to do any research at all into what the purpose or theory of operation of it was. My reaction to that was complete incredulity.)

Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?

#102

Post by cpressey »

geon wrote: post #92

I think the more interesting question is, would they? Let's assume they can build the computer, including all the supporting technologies, like electricity and precise mechanics. What use case would they have where it would make economic sense to spend countless man hours developing it? Fortunately, all the component technologies are useful in themselves, so you could start by developing them independently, just like…

I completely agree. I'm kind of surprised more readers don't seem to have this sort of reaction to the article.

Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?

#103

Post by lifeisstillgood »

swombat wrote: post #72
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of but not entirely true - I will defer to real historians but roughly it breaks down like this 100 - 180 AD : golden age of emperors, what we think of when we think Rome 200-350 : serious decline and infighting, split into four regions, during this period attempts to enforce price controls to stem inflation. Rome itself stopped being political centre 350-400 Constantine recovery (unites to one region again - on…

Well, that's the thing. Yes, the central control collapsed (though I still wouldn't underestimate the influence of the Church, which effectively controlled kings' actions through the threat of excommunication). However, on a local basis, there was no such great disaster, just a long slow change. And it was not really a dark age. As I said in my previous post, the dark age narrative is largely an invention of the 17th…

Quite a lot depends on when we say the dark ages began / ended. By say 1066 I would say Darkness was lifted, trading and Europe stabilised and by 1200 and Marco Polo Western Europe became fully involved / aware of with the rest of the Eurasia continent.

Taking 1066 as a uk centric cutoff much of the above had either not been invented / rediscovered

Kingdoms and city states - The Roman Duc and knightly organisation of armies appeared before 350, banking was I thought super charged by the crusades. Compasses - Marco Polo, the Mongols, guns - not till what 1300?

I am aware there is always some in Europe knew but it did not benefit most.

So it does depend in definitions (as always). If its the simplistic Romans/bad church/good renaissance then yes I agree with you, but if it is Good Romans/messed up Romans/dark ages/Europe starts to join the world/renaissance Then I am much happier to argue for a period of 400+ years where development in Europe was largely static and the agrarian based economies just slowly adjusted to lower levels of trade etc, and certainly 450-550 was just a morass of backwards sliding.

Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?

#104

Post by jimktrains2 »

jacques_chester wrote: post #39
mburns wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Caprica is more on the terrorist end of things where the BSG reboot is more of a normal war/in fighting/search and destroy premise.

Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?

#105

Post by rational_indian »

DanBC wrote: post #98
tolmasky wrote: post #62

I think the point of the article was "Could Romans build a computer, if plans were magically given to them?". Given this, the critique I am about to make is a little outside the scope of this thought experiment. However, I've wondered about questions like this a lot before, and I think it is also interesting to consider that the Romans (possibly) had many conceptual hurdles to cross as well. I am not a historian, but…

I agree that Roman numerals would make computers interesting. But if we extend the thought experiment to Greeks + Romans, could they have had some other kind of computing? It might not have been binary. It might not have been digital, but analogue. I don't know anything about philosophy but Zeno's Arrow Paradox shows the strength of analogue thinking. > It's interesting to think about what obvious inventions we may n…

I think Greeks + Romans + Indians increases the odds significantly.

The Indians had an understanding of the required math...

1. Binary numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number#History 2. Zero: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_(number)#India 3. A brief history of Indian mathematics: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Indexes/Indians.html

This combined with the engineering skills of the other civilizations could have in theory heralded the digital age a little sooner :)

Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?

#107

Post by abecedarius »

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2670203 has good links on mechanical computers and small CPU designs. http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2010-June/00... concludes "There’s a strong appeal in the idea that universal computation has been within the grasp of human materials and manufacturing technology since the invention of sewing in the Paleolithic; it is only the mathematical sophistication that was absent. I don’t yet know if it’s true."

Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?

#108

Post by lifeisstillgood »

serans wrote: post #81
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of but not entirely true - I will defer to real historians but roughly it breaks down like this 100 - 180 AD : golden age of emperors, what we think of when we think Rome 200-350 : serious decline and infighting, split into four regions, during this period attempts to enforce price controls to stem inflation. Rome itself stopped being political centre 350-400 Constantine recovery (unites to one region again - on…

I agree with you, but I think it's safe to say that contemporaries didn't think that Rome had fallen at all. As you say the western emperor felt about 400, but the Eastern lasted to 1453. Even not taking the east into consideration, the Papacy was seen as a continuation of the empire, and it was the Pope who crowned Charlemagne emperor about 800AD. Circa one hundred years later, the Holy Roman Empire was formed claim…

being seen as a continuation of the Roman Empire is not the same as providing the material benefits of the Roman Empire.

In my view the Dark Ages were a rolling back of the benefits of a continent-wide peaceful trading bloc and a scramble to find a non-anarchic equilibrium from which everyone could rebuild. The multiple sackings of Rome however really made contemporaries realise Rome had fallen (and probably drove everyone to look for a solution closer to home - just the wrong move in Economics 101)

Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?

#109

Post by aleyan »

maxerickson wrote: post #83
elteto wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They absolutely could have built a digital computer and much more. No, absolutely not. I think you are deluding yourself. There is a long way to go from building a fancy vase or discovering the existence of the zero quantity to developing the necessary mathematical, physical and chemical framework needed to produce even the most rudimentary piece of digital technology.

An abacus is essentially digital.

Considering the abacus is finger operated, it is digital.

Re: Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?

#110

Post by lifeisstillgood »

michaelochurch wrote: post #99
swombat wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, from what I understood from listing to a TTC lecture series about this, the "decline and fall" of the roman empire is somewhat of a fiction, in that it wasn't a brutal event, more of a long slow disintegration over the span of a thousand years. To give some sense of perspective, that's 3 times longer than the US has existed, and people have been clamouring that the US is in decline for the last 50 years. Wh…

For the people living through the supposed transition between the Classical Period and the Dark Ages, though, apparently, there was no such stark difference. Yes and no. Roman decline really happened, but the significance attached to 476 AD is an artifact developed later, when the decline actually happened over hundreds of years. As you noted, the Eastern Roman Empire carried on for another thousand years, and the Ca…

Thank you - that has made a difference I could not express much clearer.

Would it be fair to say that the average rural worker since the invention of farming had a sh*t standard of living till sometime in 20th century. It is just the upper levels of society that saw and benefited from swings in civilisation.

Interesting.

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