How to change the future

In My Humble Opinion
1

Being a fan of the Civilization games, it is a matter of thought now and then as to what could be done to advance scientific knowledge faster.

One of the daydreams I ponder is this:

I have a time machine that can transport me back in time. I can take a certain quantity of stuff with me, but only one person (so me, one person, and stuff). The stuff I bring can be no larger than a car when piled together.

For this daydream, I consider going to ancient Greece.

Now… what do I take with me and who do I bring with me?

I always figured taking someone who had a knoledge of ancient greece and could speak the langueage, even if it was a modern dialect it should still be more help than my English.

But the stuff I brought back always stumped me. Engineering books? Technical physics books? Layman’s physics books to give ideas? Weapons? Philosophical works? So much is crucial to human development that I am totally dumbfounded as to what sort of things would really get the ball rolling.

Any comments?

2

a) Instructions on how to assemble an electrical generator using simple fuels for power source

b) Example generator, pre-assembled, with parts labeled

c) Instructions on how to assemble a primitive rotating electrical motor, relying on materials readily available to the ancient Greeks and with shapes & tolerances they could manage without undue difficulty

d) Example electrical fan based on that motor + diagram explaining parts

e) Example hair dryer based on heating element and motor + diagram explaining parts

f) Hot plate based on heating element + instructions for cooking on same + diagram

g) Electrical winch & chain + diagram explaining parts

h) Long book detailing possible things one could do with electricity, how to distribute it and wire up a city, etc

3

Related, but not necessarily congruent: How long to restart civilization?

I stand by what I said in that thread: modern machine tools, plus the knowledge of how to use them, will bootstrap any civilization very , very quickly, assuming that the knowledge of how to build, use, and repair them is part of the package.

4

The problem would be in getting the Greeks to accept what it is you’re showing them. I wouldn’t try handing them a laptop with Windows 98 (Ancient Greek edition) installed on it. It’d just be too far advanced for them to accept it and understand its “value.” OTOH, if you handed them something like a flintlock, which could easily be understood, and made using their existing technology, you could convince them to upgrade to modern tooling and M-16s pretty quickly.

Someone once pointed out that the most important thing you could take back to ancient times was modern methods of sanitation.

Personally, in addition to the engineering books, modern (non-computer controlled) machine tools, modern medical knowledge, assorted weapons, I’d also bring a printing press circa the late 1800s, (should be easy enough for them to duplicate), plus general knowledge books, and plants which were unknown to Greece at that time (i.e. corn, tomatoes, potatoes, etc.). I’d also have several teams of people with me so that we could spread out over various Greek cities and spread the knowledge. That way, you wouldn’t have Sparta, for example, with the technological level of the US during the 1800s, spreading out all over the place and killing people. There’d be a balance of power.

(I’d also bring back a modern sail boat and a crew that knew how to build and use one. Sailing techniques were somewhat primitive [except for navigation skills] back then, and they could learn a lot from a modern sailboat.)

5

I think there would be a problem with manufacturing (which is why the machine tools would be interesting).

Think of poor old Leonardo Da Vinci. All the ideas (helicopter, submarine etc), but no way to make them.

And what if your original machine tools needed repair?

6

Well, a lathe can make copies of itself, so just start building lots of copies. A wind based generator is a must, I would also include the recipe for gunpoweder, as well as diagrams for making various rifles.

7

I gotta lean with the mage on this. Humans’ natural aversion to pain makes one who weilds impressive force one to respect.

Sparta conquering the area? I don’t know that this would be the worst thing to happen. I can’t think of a country whose borders weren’t forged in battles of some sort.

Apart from that, fighting technology itself is applicable to most areas of life. Guns can kill wildlife just like people. Bombs can forge mountains or demolish raised structures. Et cetera.

The lathe…hmm, yes. And a printing press, very good as well. But these two things are going to be using up quite a bit of the available space.

What sort of metal-working abilities did ancient Greeks, circa 25 BC, say, possess? It seems that anything that couldn’t be used relativly instantly upon arrival would be wasted space.

Further ideas:
Math books. Math is such an indispensable tool that I could never overlook this. I think the equivalent of analytical geometry and the first three years of college calculus would be a great bet as they also include many other scientific principles in them, used as problems (my calc book, for example, details the beginnings of problems involving electricity).
So, two math books. I would also tack on a general physics book. I’ve seen some impressive volumes which cover everything from friction calculations to quantum mechanics. Add to this two chemistry books, one organic and one inorganic.

Hmm. What left? Certainly a simple rifle or three and some ammunition. In fact, if I could locate a book on non-explosive weapon design (like bows, crossbows, etc) that would knock off 1500 years of weapons technology right now, not to mention bring most all of the so-called “simple machines” to light.

Man, weapons are a storehouse of technological innovation. War does drive the mental machine, doesn’t it?

The ideas behind modern sanitation are one I hadn’t thought of, but certainly a very good idea.

Hmmm…

8

Erislover hit upon the biggest one: the math book. That’s the one thing that:
a) can improve society
b) is understandable (to those willing to understand it)
c) proveable.

You can take as many science books as you want to, but telling them there are more elements than wind, water, earth and air isn’t the same as proving it.

Now, the really prickly question is: which inventions, if given to them, won’t advance society so far so fast they accidently destroy themselves?

9

Actually, now that I think about it, all you’d need as far as machine tools would be a lathe. A lathe will not only make copies of itself, but you can also use it to build other machine tools, if you know how.

The Greeks were no slouches when it came to metal working, and certainly would have appreciated what machine tools could do. I believe they had wood lathes, but I don’t know if anyone had started using them for metal at that time. Your biggest problem would be the cutters used for machine tools. You’d have to teach the Greeks steel making (and metallurgy in general) for them to be able to make decent cutters, but once that was done, they’d probably be able to turn out great stuff.

One thing that you’d have to convince them of, and this could really only be done by practical demonstration, is that machine power is better than slave labor. One of the reasons Greek technology didn’t advance as rapidly as it could have was because the Greeks had a plentiful supply of slaves. If you built something not too far beyond their grasp like a primitive steam locomotive (Hero invented the first steam engine, but really didn’t do anything with it.), they’d see the advantage of it over slavery and probably dispose of the institution.

10

I’d take a whole lotta textbooks, a Chinese historian, and try to convince Confucious to change Confucian philosophy to something flexible and adaptable. Oh, and introduce an alphabet, which would result in a major paradigm shift in thinking.

I’m sick of Western philosophers getting the credit for everything – and Confucious would have a four-thousand-year head start on everybody else. :smiley:

11

As strange as it may seems, I would bring the recipe to make paper. IIRC, paper is one of the few inventions that was not simultaneously discovered around the world. I recall reading that the way paper reached the West, was that some Arab society captured a Chinese traveler and tortured him to get the information (sorry, no cite, it is something that I read in a magazine years ago, the fact registered, the source didn’t).

12

Interesting read on paper. Definitely want that know-how if we do decide on a printing press! :stuck_out_tongue:

13

This thread is almost exactly like one of my favorite older sci-fi stories. I believe it’s Asimov’s “The Red Queen’s Race,” but it’s been I while since I’ve read the story so I may have it confused with another.

Anyway the story center’s around a “mad scientist” type who set out to do exactly what is being described here: send an item back to ancient Greece to help the development of civilization. (Apparently he also was a fan of the video game series.) So the scientist has a Chemistry text translated into Ancient Greek and is somehow (the processed involved some manipulation of a nuclear reactor, or something like that) sent backward through time and in the process vaporized the scientist.

An investigation into the scientist death follows and they piece together what he did. By talking with the guy’s students they figure out that the process takes 24 hours to take effect. So they’re bracing themselves for a big change in the timeline and they run through the humanity’s been lucky so far schpeal, we could have Nazis running the place, Gangis Kahn, etc. In the end, it turns out there was no change in the time line. The Greeks received the text read it and did little else with it. A society based on slave labor was unable to appreciate the value of a steam engine, and similar gifts that were handed to them. No invention before its time sort of deal.

It was really a pretty cool story and I didn’t do it justice here.

14

This reminds me of a story about a guy who did just that. Sorry, but the title escapes me right now. Probably by Harry Turtledove or Laurence Watt-Evans.

In the story the guy posed as someone from India. He ended up completely failing to impress Aristotle with his advanced skills and knowledge, and his focus on practical applications for theoretical knowledge. End result: his time machine yanks him back to the present day-- and the Greeks and Romans never did squat in terms of developing. He ends up as a scribe for a North American indian chief fighting Nordic settlers in a world that never developed anything more advanced than a chariot.

15

Tuckerfan was up to something with this… you’d have to PROVE to them that these “improvements” were worth their time and energy ----> They aren’t going to just crack open a math book because you want them to… you’re gonna have to show them an example of what that math knowledge can result in… THEN they’ll be more than willing.

Along with all the other things mentioned, the idea of interchangable parts would be huge for them (if they were openminded enough to implement it).

Uniformity in production is sooooo important to engineering breakthroughs. Interchangable parts are central to repairing damaged machines, etc. (What’s the point in showing them how to make trains when there would be no easy way to repair them?)

The notion of (and use of) standardized screws, nuts, bolts, wrenches, hammer, screwdriver, etc. would help them out considerably in construction. The applications for interchangable parts are endless… think about it!

Of course, all this depends on their ability in metalurgy. How far along were they?

16

The story is A Gun for Aristotle by L. Sprague de Camp.

17

Perhaps the simplest thing to do would be to take back modern seeds, especially those from the New World, like potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, sunflowers, tomatoes, squash, amaranth, beans, along with modern improved wheat, rice, etc. The increased food production would definately jump-start a population explosion and permanently increase the number of people per acre.

Or even better, go back and distribute wheat, barley, cabbage, turnip, carrot, rice, and grapes to the NEW world. Heck, potatoes never made it up to North America. Also good would be to take back a few horses, goats, cows, and chickens for the Incas, Mayans, or Mound-Builders. Also some metallurgy texts would be good. Oh, perhaps introducing smallpox, plague, etc. would be a good idea too. It would seriously deplete the New World population at first, but they’d get over it. And then when Mr. Columbus comes visiting the population wouldn’t crash at the first hint of Old-World germs.

18

Yeah, that’s why I felt that bringing back a rifle of some sort would be priority one. I think that such a small, compact thing with such power would impress the hell out of them.

The most important thing is to command respect immediately, and power is the only way I can think of doing that. Well, it might start out as fear, but I think, after realizing I was a nice guy, I’d get a sheep or two and maybe even a girl, and everyone would be very inquisitive. IMO.

And yes, the sheep was a joke. No, really. My tastes in no way reflect upon the Greeks :stuck_out_tongue:

19

Actually you probably would get a sheep. My dad’s side of the family used to own one. Hell, even I have a goat… then again its plastic, an inch tall, and his name is Stenton.