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

141–145 of 145 posts

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

#141

Post by redwood »

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 see the Roman numerals as actually more like binary than our decimal system. Then again their system has a lack of uniformity

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

#142

Post by redwood »

jacques_chester wrote: post #13

I'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…

Poly + mono-terror: look to India

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

#143

Post by duaneb »

jeremyswank wrote: post #23
duaneb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nulla/nihil.

philosophical (or philological question): is having a word for 'nothing' the same as having a number 'zero'? my answer would be no. when zero entered western civilization from the east, my understanding is that it triggered profound changes. yet indo-european languages have probably pretty much always had a word for 'nothing'.

'nihil' translates to nothing, but 'nullus' translates to 'lack of' and was recognized and used as a number, even if the symbols didn't reflect this. Just because zero wasn't typically used when teaching mathematics (i.e. teaching quantity instead of number line) doesn't mean that there was no concept of 'zero' in the numerical sense. Both the romans and the greeks had concepts and proofs based around negativity and zero.

However, modern notation, including negative sign, zero, and algebra, are all rooted in eastern and middle eastern cultures.

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

#144

Post by rjwarrier »

Romans building a digital computer? Seriously?? almost all of their so called achievements were actually stolen frm the East (India). 2500years ago India had two biggest universities in Nalanda and Thakshashila which encouraged scientific thinking. and you are talking about a barbaric civilization that was good at war and killing? pathetic...

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

#145

Post by Turing_Machine »

InvisibleCities wrote: post #134
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…

>For the average European, there probably wasn't a directional change, but the average European left no writing. The average European went from a free citizen of Rome to a serf, laboring under conditions that bordered on slavery. I'd say that's a pretty radical negative change.

"The average European went from a free citizen of Rome to a serf, laboring under conditions that bordered on slavery."

~30-40% of the population of Roman Italy was made up of (real) slaves and most Europeans did not have Roman citizenship until so late in the Empire that it didn't really gain them much (it was actually disadvantageous to most -- Caracalla only instituted universal Roman citizenship so he could raise the taxes on the new "citizens").

I agree that serfdom wasn't much better. IIRC, one of the few advantages of serfdom was that you couldn't (in general) be sold away from your family. Serfs were considered part of the land.

Post reply on HN