Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?

hscott.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 145 posts

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

#121

Post by ars »

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've only recently learnt that in Russian there are different words for "blue", and that these are seen as different colours, not just lighter or darker shades of the same colour.

That's true in English as well. Pink is really just light red.

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

#122

Post by baddox »

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.

In the same way that counting stones or counting on your fingers is "digital."

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

#123

Post by ImprovedSilence »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #70
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…

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…

The crazy thought is, would it still be possible for the world to fall back into some sort of "dark ages", and we all end up living in some crazy mad max/aquaworld nightmare? It's happened before when societies fall apart, just because we have more technology now doesn't seem to me to mean it can't happen again.

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

#124

Post by Retric »

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…

There where significant advances in mathematics and technology in the dark ages along with a massive population boom. Most notably algebra, armor, bows (long, compound), clocks, and fortifications. But, also agriculture, animal husbandry, musical instruments, tools, manufacturing, and many others. What was missing was a unified empire and the trappings of such, but there where a lot more practical advancements than most people understand.

PS: The roman army was great for it's time, but they would have been decimated by far smaller 'dark' age equivalents. The closest real world comparison was Hernán Cortés and the fall of the Aztec Empire using 6 guns ~2,000 people, 100 horses they could easily take on the euqivelent of an 100,000 man incan army. (Incan army was larger than that but they had native help.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hern%C3%A1n_Cort%C3%A9s

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

#125

Post by maxerickson »

baddox wrote: post #122
maxerickson wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An abacus is essentially digital.

In the same way that counting stones or counting on your fingers is "digital."

Sure, it's a bit of a pedantic point. I don't think it is particularly tiresome in this case, I think the interesting thing about computers is that they are programmable.

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

#126

Post by michaelochurch »

Retric wrote: post #124
michaelochurch wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There where significant advances in mathematics and technology in the dark ages along with a massive population boom. Most notably algebra, armor, bows (long, compound), clocks, and fortifications. But, also agriculture, animal husbandry, musical instruments, tools, manufacturing, and many others. What was missing was a unified empire and the trappings of such, but there where a lot more practical advancements than m…

You're right, and the "Dark Ages" concept comes with a Western European bias. For China and the Muslim world, it was a time of prosperity and advancement.

War, as you've noted, is one thing that medieval Europe was (compared to the Romans) quite good at. There's a misconception that European swords were heavy, awkward, and dull. While they were never as aesthetically attractive as Japanese swords, they were formidable and more than good enough to do the job.

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

#128

Post by lifeisstillgood »

ImprovedSilence wrote: post #123
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…

The crazy thought is, would it still be possible for the world to fall back into some sort of "dark ages", and we all end up living in some crazy mad max/aquaworld nightmare? It's happened before when societies fall apart, just because we have more technology now doesn't seem to me to mean it can't happen again.

Mad max worlds are deeply crazy and whilst there were I am sure equivalents (without the fast cars and the hacksaws) Mostly they would be short lived - no-one benefits from madness and humans don't like it. So pretty quickly a more stable equilibrium asserts itself, usually around one strongman. Democracy definitely optional.

Will it happen again - pretty likely. We are on a growth treadmill - the Romans growth fed by an seemingly inexhaustible supply of slaves from conquered regions, that dipped after Tiberius around 110.

And us. Well we have machines to do all the work for us - on average a UK citizen burns up 120kw per day - or 40 slaves burning 3000 calories a day. We need to keep inventing more efficient machines or inexhaustible energy supplies

So make room temperature fusion work and I will say its unlikely we will collapse. Without it, probably inevitable - but we keep going, because the poor are starving and the Syrians are getting shelled.

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

#129

Post by krallja »

sageikosa wrote: post #85
dmoo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slight tangent, but there is a marvelous series about this crossfeeding of technologies called 'Connections' by James Burke. Its old but still great to watch. http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesBurkeConnection?feature=wat... I can't recommend it highly enough, its worth taking the time to start at series one.

Also by Burke, "The Day the Universe Changed", Netflix had/has it through their DVD service a few years back. In that series he goes into the history of the ideas that make our modern world possible. The idea being that the day the universe changes is the day you start looking at it differently.

It's also available on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9ED93A671A5282EA

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

#130

Post by ImprovedSilence »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #128
ImprovedSilence wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crazy thought is, would it still be possible for the world to fall back into some sort of "dark ages", and we all end up living in some crazy mad max/aquaworld nightmare? It's happened before when societies fall apart, just because we have more technology now doesn't seem to me to mean it can't happen again.

Mad max worlds are deeply crazy and whilst there were I am sure equivalents (without the fast cars and the hacksaws) Mostly they would be short lived - no-one benefits from madness and humans don't like it. So pretty quickly a more stable equilibrium asserts itself, usually around one strongman. Democracy definitely optional. Will it happen again - pretty likely. We are on a growth treadmill - the Romans growth fed b…

Yeah, I didn't mean mad max worlds literally, as much as I meant "a darker period of 'civilization'", or a loss of knowledge/ability/technology.

That's interesting thought you have though, of building society on "energy consumption" (labor, work, joules, whatever) whether it be slaves or oil. I suppose you could say it boils down to physics.

Post reply on HN