# Have we lost any technologies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 17, 2002, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151 "2002-11-17T09:27:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Motog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85e7bf/32.png) [@Motog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motog)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/21 "2002-11-18T01:17:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by chula \* > \*\*There was a show on PBS in which engineers and others tried to recreate old inventions. There are many examples of things we no longer no how to make. \*\* I think it was called “Secrets of the Ancients” or something like that. It was a fascinating BBC series. **Captain Amazing** That reference to Australian aborigines losing the technology for bows and arrows intrigues me. I know that Jared Diamond states it in “Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies” but I’ve also heard that they simply never had bows and arrows. Diamond’s reason why the technology disappeared always struck me as a bit lame- from memory he said that they stopped using them when they had killed off all the easy game. Do you know of any other cites for this claim? Diamond also made a case study of guns in Japan. Guns were introduced into Japan in 1543 by the Portugese. Within 100 years Japan had more guns per capita than any other country on earth. However the Samurai (rightly) saw them as a threat to their power and suppressed them so that when Commodore Perry arrived in the 1840s both the guns and the technology that made them had completely disappeared. There’s an article by Diamond [here](http://www.amacad.org/blvliiin4/blvliiin4_20.htm) that also discusses a range of technologies lost by the isolated Tasmanian aboriginal community- such as the ability to make fire from scratch, bone tools. Further he states that: > [@](#): > > The Torres Strait islanders between Australia and New Guinea abandoned canoes. Most Polynesian societies lost bows and arrows and pottery. The Polar Eskimos lost the kayak; the Dorset Eskimos lost dogs and bow drills; the Japanese lost guns. ---
**Author:** ![Motog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85e7bf/32.png) [@Motog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motog)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/22 "2002-11-18T01:19:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Within 100 years Japan had more guns per capita than any other country on earth Sorry, that should say: > [@](#): > > _Within a decade_ Japan had more guns per capita than any other country on earth ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/23 "2002-11-18T01:35:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr. Blue Sky \* > \*\*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. \*\* It wasn’t that they couldn’t build it, they instead found that the plane itself was nearly impossible to fly because it is extremely unstable by design. [http://www.usatoday.com/news/healthscience/science/astro/2001-07-05-wright-flyer.htm](http://www.usatoday.com/news/healthscience/science/astro/2001-07-05-wright-flyer.htm) > [@](#): > > “I’d say it was almost a miracle they were able to fly it.” At least 2 groups that I know of are trying to build a replica for the 100th anniversary next December. Hopefully with lots of practice with simulators the people that they find to fly the craft will be able to keep it in the air like Wilbur was. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/24 "2002-11-18T02:12:30Z")
Well, I didn’t easily find much in the way of definitive sources, but I seem to recall that the Nazis had a method of artificially synthesizing oil that didn’t survive WWII. UL or not? As others have pointed out, though, many technologies have become just plain obsolete and skills in them are no longer needed. The more intriguing scenario, of course, involves the possibly vital technology that once was ours, but has passed from our grasp. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/25 "2002-11-18T02:23:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ringo \* > \*\*\ The more intriguing scenario, of course, involves the possibly vital technology that once was ours, but has passed from our grasp. \*\* Well, for that, you can always join the crowds of folks who claim that Tesla had lots and lots of super hi-tech stuff that got lost when he died. There’s also just about every free energy site out there claiming that this or that departed inventor had it all worked out, but died before he could realize his greatest dream. ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/26 "2002-11-18T03:01:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > 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? I am not sure. Wait till I read more of it. 😃 Anyway, I suspect one of the reasons is stupid emperors, but the main one is probably Confucianism > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > (And how did the Chinese react to Needham’s writings?) Pretty positive, I reckon. ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/27 "2002-11-18T03:13:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ringo \* > As others have pointed out, though, many technologies have become just plain obsolete and skills in them are no longer needed. The more intriguing scenario, of course, involves the possibly vital technology that once was ours, but has passed from our grasp. That’s possible, but the odds of that has happened is very slim. The main reason is there are more scientists and engineers than there ever has been. A lot of teams race against each other to make discoveries and inventions. Even back in the days of Darwin, Wallace almost beat him to discovering evolution. Some said Wallace did beat good old Charlie. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/28 "2002-11-18T03:28:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Motog \* > \*\* > I think it was called “Secrets of the Ancients” or something like that. It was a fascinating BBC series. > \*\* Secrets of Lost Empires The stonehenge episode was probably my favorite. ---
**Author:** ![honkytonkwillie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@honkytonkwillie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/honkytonkwillie)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/29 "2002-11-18T08:21:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ringo \* > **Well, I didn’t easily find much in the way of definitive sources, but I seem to recall that the Nazis had a method of artificially synthesizing oil that didn’t survive WWII. UL or not?** I think you’re refering to a method used to produce a gasoline-like fuel from natural gas. “White gas” maybe? I don’t remember much, but I heard about it a few years ago as a possible means of transporting natural gas from the North Slope. It had high energy overhead, something like 30% of gas would be consumed in the conversion alone, even before transport. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/30 "2002-11-18T08:59:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > \*\*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?) \*\* The Chinese were in a position where they had a good thing going (for the leaders) and didn’t want or need to rock the boat. [ul] [li]They have always had a very regimented, complex, structured government and society. In the Imperial Age, there was no vertical mobility of any kind and horizontal mobility was scarce to impossible. New technologies would have done to China what they did to Europe: Created new social classes and disrupted what the Chinese Emperors needed to stay in power.[/li][li]They had no constant fights over resources or religion. Unlike Europe, China was one big homogenous region with no great political or religious rifts. Furthermore, China’s leadership was built on a Hydraulic Monarcy: Massive public works projects were needed to irrigate farmland, creating a bureaucratic system to administer them and centralizing power in the hands of those who controlled the irrigation ditches. If nobody can get uppity enough to challenge the High Mandarin, there are no arms races and new technologies simply aren’t developed.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/31 "2002-11-18T12:20:54Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. You mean an Archimedes Screw? Oh, a lot of those supposedly _lost_ technologies like blacksmithing, and so forth aren’t lost, they are just rare, having no utility. I know of several local armorers, weaponsmiths, and general blacksmiths. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/32 "2002-11-18T12:45:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Even back in the days of Darwin, Wallace almost beat him to discovering evolution. Some said Wallace did beat good old Charlie. Another example: Let’s say that you went back in time and shot Alexander Graham Bell before he could patent the telephone. We’d still have the telephone, because Elisha Grey was also deleloping it. In fact, Bell beat Grey to the patent office by only four hours! ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/33 "2002-11-18T22:54:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by smiling bandit \* > \*\*You mean an Archimedes Screw? > > Oh, a lot of those supposedly _lost_ technologies like blacksmithing, and so forth aren’t lost, they are just rare, having no utility. I know of several local armorers, weaponsmiths, and general blacksmiths. \*\* Actually, I’d say that **jjimm** was probably talking about a [hydraulic ram](http://a.tribalfusion.com/f.ad?site=HowStuffWorkscom&adSpace=ROS&size=468x60&type=horiz&requestID=242330773), which uses the momentum of a relatively large amount of moving water to pump a relatively small amount of water uphill. ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/34 "2002-11-18T23:20:50Z")
Oddly enough the sercret to Damascus steel has been recovered. The actual secret was unkown to those who made the original. The strength came from way specific impurities such as vanadium reacted to the forging process. The ingots, called wootz cakes, came from India. When the source changed the composition changed and no one knew why. A modern knifemaker and metalurgist did destructive testing of some original Damascus blades and through some experimentation were able to recreate the preocess. I read the article in _Scientific American_ but here’s a pretty good summary of it. [http://www.rense.com/general12/damas.htm](http://www.rense.com/general12/damas.htm) FWIW Damascus steel is not laminated as are Samurai swords. The surface patterns looks very similar but are an artifact of the forging process on the impurities. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/35 "2002-11-18T23:21:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ringo \* > **Well, I didn’t easily find much in the way of definitive sources, but I seem to recall that the Nazis had a method of artificially synthesizing oil that didn’t survive WWII. UL or not?** They did explore and implement ways to “crack” high and medium-volatile bituminous hard coal to create petroleum, IIRC. Could that be what you are thinking of? ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/36 "2002-11-18T23:23:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diceman \* > \*\*Another example: Let’s say that you went back in time and shot Alexander Graham Bell before he could patent the telephone. > > We’d still have the telephone, because Elisha Grey was also deleloping it. In fact, Bell beat Grey to the patent office by only four hours! \*\* Or Antonio Meucci, who had a working model before either of them, but couldn’t come up with the money to file a patent. His heirs claimed that Bell and Meucci once shared a lab, and Bell stole the design from Meucci. Of course, no one person invented the telephone. It was a combination of technologies that already existed for the most part, and Bell, Gray, and Meucci managed to put them together in the right way. Use your time machine to shoot all three of them, and I’ll bet the telephone still gets invented in the same era. It was an idea whose time had come. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/37 "2002-11-19T00:34:33Z")
Hand-grinding lenses, in the manner of Anton Van Leewenhoek (the Dutch inventor of the microscope), perhaps? Although a certain crafted aspect survives in the creation of one-of-a-kind superlenses for the Hubble Telescope and its like. Also, slide rulers, mimeograph machines, IBM punchcard systems, and Chinese typewriters (with their massive trays holding hundreds of character tiles) are all falling into history’s tech dustbin. Not that they couldn’t be revived in a pinch, I suppose… but I can’t imagine the circumstances. Does anybody know from personal observation if the abacus has fallen out of use in Asian commercial establishments? I wonder if, outside certain rubber-producing developing nations, if any industry still uses natural rubber – vulcanized or unvulcanized. In the medical field, there’s a pressing need for today’s physicians to be able to readily recognize smallpox, bubonic plague, etc. and to immediately alert the proper authorities. Those are diagnoses that no early-Renaissance-era physic would have had difficulty with. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/38 "2002-11-19T00:43:02Z")
- - - Hand-grinding lenses isn’t lost by any means, most any big amateur telescope supply catalog will have all the materials and tools needed to do it. … - Glass? sort-of? It wasn’t lost, but it was misplaced for a while. ~ ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/39 "2002-11-19T00:58:49Z")
**Scrivener** : I own a slide rule and a manual, and I’ve used it a few times (it’s a circular model, so maybe not what you’re thinking of). Slide rules aren’t going to die like Greek fire died, but they’re already obsolete and rather hard to find. As for punch cards, well, I don’t know. The basic technology behind punch cards is not going anywhere, but certain formats used by specific models of specific punch card-driven machines may already have been more or less lost to time. Depending on the generation of the machine and the longevity of the corporation producing it, specific punch cards may or may not be readable with current knowledge. For example, [EBCDIC](http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?Extended+Binary+Coded+Decimal+Interchange+Code) isn’t going anywhere, despite the fact the rest of the world has chosen ASCII (in various incarnations, the most recent being Unicode) over this deliberately nonstandard in-house format. Why? `In-house’ was IBM, and people still have to interface with antique IBM mainframes. Similarly, [Baudot code](http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?Baudot+code) has survived far past its prime because certain niches (TDD and Ham radio) still use it. A paper tape program in Baudot could be readable, even if other programs from the same era aren’t. So, is a technology dead when the fundamentals have been forgotten, or is it dead when useful specifics have to be recreated to fill in the gaps? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151/40 "2002-11-19T01:00:17Z")
To head off questions, [ASCII](http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?American+Standard+Code+for+Information+Interchange). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-any-technologies/137151.md?page=3)