Is it possible to lose technologies? I heard that we couldn’t reproduce the strong hulls on battleships that were built for WWII because all of the forge workers have died, and their knowledge with them. But I can’t find anything to verify this. Can anyone think of any technologies we’ve lost? I just don’t see how it’s possible.
Also, can the understanding of technologies be lost? In 1000 years will computers be so advanced that no one even understands the basic principles of how they work? This question stems from a Star Trek where an advanced society (they could cloak their whole planet!) was run in every aspect by computers for thousands of years, and the people had lost the ability to reproduce because the computers were leaking radiation and they didn’t even know what “radiation” was.
I find it hard to believe that we’ve lost the ability to make battleship hulls as strong as they once were (if they are indeed less strong than they used to be). Forging is done by machinery these days, and I imagine that it was done by machine during WW II, so the fact that the forge workers have all died/retired is meaningless. Even if the skills (and that’s what you’re really talking about here) had been lost, they could be easily rediscovered. There’s plenty of folks out there who do similar work to forging (autobody work, for example), and they could work out the necessary techniques fairly quickly.
It certainly is possible, however, to lose technology. After Rome fell, people lost the knowledge of how to do things like build roads, large buildings, and the process of making concrete. Eventually, these things were rediscovered, but it took time.
Specific processes may be lost over time, and might be forgotten, but that doesn’t mean that something similar can’t be recreated, if someone has the desire and the means to do so.
People forget great ideas… thats probably where a lot of ‘technology’ is lost. In all honesty if everyone was more self confident about their ideas, and better yet remembered them, we’d probably “recover” a great deal of lost technology.
But for the most part - if its useful people will learn it, use it, and improve upon it. If its not useful (maybe it turns out to be later) nobody is going to listen or care. Ive heard (this may be wrong) that a Roman engineer actually invented a steam engine, but nobody really cared save some egyptians higher ups who wanted to wow people with a magical door that opened on its own. But nobody really had any demaind for that knowledge, so it was not replicated sufficiently to survive or even find a use.
I’ve heard from time to time that certain aspects of the skills of blacksmiths, stonemasons, and the like, need to be rediscovered (ie. learned from scratch through trial and error) whenever projects like cathedral restorations are undertaken. Many of these ancient crafts were highly secretive, and this is no doubt a contributing factor in the loss of knowledge. I’d also wager that many of the cleverest, most skilled exponents were illiterate, which probably doesn’t help.
My great-grandfather was one of the last people in the UK able to make clay brick kilns. With him died the art. Not of course that it’s needed anymore.
Kind of on-topic anecdote: aid developers in third-world countries spent years messing around with generators and electric pumps in order to pump river water up to villages that didn’t have a water supply, until someone chanced upon an old Victorian design of mechanical pump that used the flow of the river to provide propulsion for the water. Major problem solved.
There are classic SF stories on this theme. Robert A. Heinlein’s Universe and Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination are about populations on deep space journeys who had been in space for so many generations, they forgot what science was … their remnants of scientific knowledge had turned into superstition.
I’d guess a lot of technology becomes “lost” as newer technology leapfrogs the old technology. As many people pointed out, things like blacksmithing, making clay brick kilns, and other such things have been lost because newer technology has made them obsolete. You see mini-examples of this in fast moving technologies like the computer industry a lot; Mr. Athena’s job involves working on a legacy system still in use at a major financial company. The company purchased the software it 20 years ago from a software house where Mr. Athena worked at the time. Fast forward twenty years and they need someone to maintain and upgrade the system. Mr. Athena is one of a handful of people in the world who intimately know how it works, so he’s got the job.
When he and that handful of people die, that technology will be ‘lost’. And knowing this financial institution, they’ll probably still be using the damn thing. :rolleyes:
Yes. Back in ancient times, there was a weapon called “Greek Fire”. It was probably a mix of various petroleum biproducts and was probably similar to napalm…a flammable liquid that couldn’t be extinguished by fire. I say probably because nobody knows how to make Greek Fire anymore. The Byzantines kept it a secret, and when that empire collapsed, the secret of the weapon collapsed with them.
Also, in the Pacific, certain Australian aboriginal tribes seem to have lost the ability to use bows and arrows. We know that they were used by the places that the Aboriginines left when they they left those places, but they lacked the technology.
Heck, the entire Battletech universe is based on so much time being spent fighting that the people of the year 3000 are worse off tech wise than the people of 2500.
Isn’t there some sort of problem reverse-engineering the Kitty Hawk flyer? IIRC, a group of aviation buffs was trying to build a replica to fly on the 100th anniversary of the original, but couldn’t figure how the original was built.
Warhammer 40,000 is like this as well. “In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.” Cheery game.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. It deals unflinchingly with the challenges of recovering knowledge and rebuilding civilization after a nuclear war. It’s a great read, though calling it a downer would be a significant understatement.
Damascus steel would probably be the best example. The ability to make that particular steel was lost a few hundred years ago, and I believe only recently re-discovered.
I think the main technologies we’ve lost, however, are those that required huge numbers of humans to provide muscle power, and/or used archaic replacements for modern materials.
For example, there are sarcophagi in Egypt that are in small rock crypts, but with huge, heavy rock casings laid over top of them. For a long time, we couldn’t figure out how ancient people managed to lower a multi-ton stone down inside a narrow crypt. The answer turned out to be sand hydraulics - have a room underneath the crypt that is just a sand container. Put big timbers through holes in the floor, and slide the stone lid on top of the timbers. The timbers are supported by the sand. Now drain the sand, and the timbers slowly sink, lowering the lid.
It seems that the Egyptians had many ways to use ordinary sand as a tool, and most of them are lost now.
What about Stradavarius violins? This not a technology that disappeared because no one was interested, but just a secret that died with the discoverer. I know that someone (whose name I have forgotten, Carly ???) who claims to be able to duplicate the quality today, but I don’t think she claims to have rediscovered all his methods.
I recently watched a documentary about old artcrafts related to building, and there was this little village in northern france where people still built each year (or several time a year, can’t remember) a kiln. Everybody help heating it (it needs apparently a massive quantity of wood) and the whole night during which the bricks are (don’t know the appropriate word…heated? cooked?), is a big feast in the village. Aparently the bricks are conform to the traditionnal standarts and are put to some use, though I can’t remember which (restoration, perhaps?).
His name was Hero, and he was a Greek. If you grab a copy of Ancient Inventions by Peter James and Nick, it discusses not only that invention of his, but several others as well.
Supposedly the Incan quipos contained vast amounts of information, but there was nobody alive within a generation of the Spanish conquest who could read the knots.
The eruption of the volcano at Thera (now Santorini) ca. 1200 BCE which destroyed Minoan civilization saw massive technological loss. Literacy was essentially forgotten and in some areas people literally seem to have gone back to foraging and wearing skins for a while. (Egypt wasn’t particularly affected, though there is a theory that the volcano was recorded in the Bible as the Twelve Plagues [it caused darkness, descending ash, “bloody” water, etc.]).
The Roman evacuation of Britain in the fifth century was also a period of enormous technological loss, as nobody was left who could repair an aqueduct and literacy greatly diminished. The Fall of Rome of course led to the Dark Ages which are so called because of the loss of literacy, urbanization, etc…
According to Ann Coulter, if Gore is elected in 2004 the world will be cast into darkness and cannibalism will replace fast food as the nation’s nourishment of choice.
Yes, the Chinese are very famous for this. They would invent things then decide “eh, we don’t really need it anymore. Burn all record of it and kill anyone who says it existed”. A famous example is the clock. The Chinese invented it hundreds of years before Europeans (so that they could tell they exact time future royal progeny were conceived), yet it was forgotten about and they were amazed by it when Christian missionaries came with them later.
Yeah, what’s with the Chinese making all these scientific advancements ahead of everyone else and then turning their back on them? All I know is that Joseph Needham wrote a huge study of this, Science and Civilization in China (which I haven’t read). If anyone has read it—what’s the explanation for this?
(And how did the Chinese react to Needham’s writings?)