Ancient Technology

I was watching a show called Mythbusters last night, and they had an interesting story to investigate. It concerned an ancient Korean weapon called the Hwacha. Supposedly, it could fire 200 explosive arrows at once at a range of 500 yards. They did some test, and then built a Hwacha. It proved its reputation and then some. A volley of arrows shot out like a primitive missile launcher and exceeded the distance.

Ancient technology fascinates me. We think most things were invented in the modern age, but ancient cultures had similar devices long before we reinvented it. China was the first to build earth quake detecting devices. The middle east created the first battery. Greeks had a full understanding of hydrolics and steam power. An Egyptian wrote the first medical book.

You wonder that if none of these inventions and discoveries had been forgotten or neglected, where would we be now? Would we be living on the moon and have cleaner power sources? It makes you think.

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Anything is possible, if you believe in yourself.

Post edited at 4:05 am on Jan. 7, 2009 by HiggledyPiggledy

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Anything is possible, if you believe in yourself.

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I also was thinking of one of those Medieval slingshots which could fire a full lavatory 1,000 paces... can you imagine that?

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Is that a trebuchet? Theyre damn powerful catapults!

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You go back in time when you smoke a King Eddy.
IT AIN'T EASY, BEIN CHEESY

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Quote: from Event Horizon at 2:20 pm on Jan. 7, 2009

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If anything that makes me hate extremists much more.

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fucking monks, preserving ancient culture and knowledge in the wake of the collapse of the Roman empire in the face of cultural decadence and encroaching germanic tribes

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"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

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Quote: from BleedingSteelWings at 10:44 am on Jan. 29, 2009

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Quote: from Event Horizon at 2:20 pm on Jan. 7, 2009

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 If anything that makes me hate extremists much more.

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fucking monks, preserving ancient culture and knowledge in the wake of the collapse of the Roman empire in the face of cultural decadence and encroaching germanic tribes

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Quote: from TheOtherHorseman at 11:52 pm on Jan. 29, 2009

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Quote: from BleedingSteelWings at 10:44 am on Jan. 29, 2009

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Quote: from Event Horizon at 2:20 pm on Jan. 7, 2009

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  If anything that makes me hate extremists much more.

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 fucking monks, preserving ancient culture and knowledge in the wake of the collapse of the Roman empire in the face of cultural decadence and encroaching germanic tribes

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Is that an attack against someone?

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He's pointing out that a lot of ancient technology and literature that we now know about we only know about because Christian monks liked to pass the time by preserving knowledge that would have otherwise been lost.

Christianity didn't cause technology to collapse.  German tribes migrating to escape invading waves of Asian nomads and a flaccid Roman Empire did technology in.  

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Please, stop the hate.
Je t'aime! :D

To put it bluntly, this graph is full of shit.

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Quote: from Event Horizon at 9:50 am on Jan. 7, 2009

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To put it bluntly, this graph is full of shit.

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how so? the steep upward extrapolation curve?  It could do with some reduction but still.  
however, I realize that most of our tech is due to Newton's physics discoveries.

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Nah, I was really referring more toward the Middle Ages. There was hardly a huge drop in technology and it remained stagnant for 1000 years (especially not to the level of 1000 BC). Even if that were the case for Europe (which it was not), that's then an extremely Eurocentric graph as while Europe was enduring the so called "Dark Ages" during the first half of the Middle Ages, the classics, natural sciences, and other technology flourished elsewhere.

After all, in medieval Europe alone, there was the adoption of the stirrup and arched saddle (allowing for militaries to be based on cavalry, as is exemplified by the importance of knights and the like), a newer and more efficient method of agriculture, along with greatly improved water mills and the horse collar and horseshoe (combined with favorable environmental conditions, allowing for Europe's population boom in the High Middle Ages which wouldn't be surpassed until the 18th century), clear and transparent glass (before about 1200, all glass was opaque - this new glass would allow for European dominance in optics, which would come to aid in navigation and astronomy), mechanical clocks, improved building techniques of all kinds in general, the blast furnace, how to grow silk in Europe, etc. And don't forget, it's hardly like Europeans didn't know any of the classics or were void of any philosophy or notion of civilization - the medievals were certainly familiar with Aristotle. The 12th century renaissance is seriously overlooked by those who emphasize the "Renaissance" of the 16th century.

Western Europe around 1200 was by far more more advanced than the Roman Empire at its height, even if they still lacked a few key Roman technologies like concrete. However, one or two things is hardly significant in the grand scheme of everything.

Moreover, be wary of graphs like this. It is more than likely based entirely on one individual's notion of history's technological progress and nothing else. It is so difficult to measure actual technological progress that I have a hard time accepting any graph showing even a general trend.

Post edited at 7:11 pm on Feb. 8, 2009 by Bud2400

I'd much rather live in Rome than anywhere in Europe in the 1200's.