Posted on 04/12/2015 6:20:17 PM PDT by MNDude
If you time traveled back to 1015, would you have enough modern knowledge and education to improve your llfe?
I mean like could you invent gunpowder or serious medical advancements, etc?
Of course not. You’d be burned at the stake for practicing witchcraft. Humans have had to be dragged through their evolution.
"I'm here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of bubblegum."
:^)
Materials, tool and die would be the problem. Medical and sanitation would be improvements. Force multipliers should be simple to build but then we are back to the original problem. Consider, I want to build a simple low pressure boiler. To do so I need to be able to weld or solider. For that I need point heating. So let’s say I know how to make acetylene. How would I compress it? If I could compress it how could I store it? See how the issues compound? And how would I not get burned at the stake for witchcraft?
bookmark
I could make the hardest steel anyone of the time had seen. A simple generator would not be difficult but lightbulbs would be harder, the inert gas filled bulb but an arc welder would be huge. Construction,don’t get me started. What about history, I’d make Nostradamus look like a hack.
I’d take the metallurgy with me too.
To pick a more recent example, say you contacted Logan airport on 9/10/2001 and told them under NO circumstances allow Mohammad Atta (and the other pilots) on board those planes.
Perhaps call in a bomb threat to close down the airport.
Sure you "might" prevent 9/11, but then you'd also know about other upcoming tragedies, plane crashes, bombings, politics etc.
SOMEONE would find you and they'd be VERY interested in just how you know that stuff.
They'd probably torture you for information.
Or even kill you.
ANY modern MD would be almost unimaginably advanced relative to the 1630s.
Most people today, even conservatives, will agree that feminism and unionism did good to correct injustices in the 19tha and erly 20th centuries.
I’d add cane sugar to the Aztecs’ cocoa drink and become king of the world in 5 minutes. After that, they’d have a harder time burning me at the stake for crazy ideas.
Thanks.
Very carefully. Acetylene is dissolved in acetone in a ceramic sponge under pressure. Get just the gas at too high a pressure and it will reconfigure its structure with a sudden release of heat and likely destroy your workshop.
Used to make black gunpowder with charcoal sulfur and salt peter. That may be the only contribution I would make. Would have to think about it to decide if I have any other tidbits - most of us probably have some that we don’t even realize.
If we’re talking a 1000 years ago in the US you better be pretty good at working with wood and stone, skills as a hunter gather would come in handy also. Your only tools were what you could scrap from the earth.
I’m not convinced of that, the stone tools (projectile points) found during that period were to large for bow’s but normal for an Atlatl.
Already been there. It smells so bad I came back.
Why buy a boat? You could just go with the Vikings.
Never saw the movie but read the book when it came out. Fun read but IMO not one of Michael Crichton’s best.
In 1911 Ishi (Last of the Yahi tribe in California) turned himself in and was befriended by Saxton Pope. His knowledge of archery was an interest to Dr. Pope, Ishi was making his own bows/arrows from local tree’s and his projectile points were made of stone and what glass he could salvage from local settlements.
I know where to find lots of gold.
With enough current and the right minerals I bet you could make aluminum!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.