[DBrow]

Anything involving “aluminum” or “polymer” would be useless. Printing? First you’d need to invent a cheap paper source.

And you could easily be tripped up by religion. There was a time when you could be severely punished for thinking you could make a vacuum.

I do think, though, that if you had a good tech background in 2015 and a knowlege of history, you could fit in. You won’t invent a loudspeaker with an aluminum voicecoil, but you could improve brewing, winemaking, fertilizer, metalworking enough to make a living. Push too hard and you’ll be burned as a heretic, though.

http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201210/physicshistory.cfm

[Buttons12]

What happened to the fellow that introduced aluminum to the emperor?

[nikos1121]

I think a good general surgeon and a dentist going back one thousand years could make a big impact on society, but you’d have to come up with an anesthesia. Aspirin would be a powerful drug if you could find how to make it. With a little bit of time and effort you could probably come up with a simple antibiotic. I’m fascinated by the lack of simple wound care skills. You could use placenta for skin grafting. How did people deal with kidney stones? You’d really have to come up with some powerful analgesics but I imagine opium and cocaine were used long before then.

[expatguy]

...There was a time when you could be severely punished for thinking you could make a vacuum....

That sucks.