# Technological developments. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 23, 2014, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559 "2014-01-23T21:29:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/21 "2014-01-24T09:08:06Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > There’s no reason evolution and maybe even natural selection couldn’t have been discovered by the Greeks. They had comparative anatomy, fossils, and could have connected it with artificial selection like Darwin did. It’s a simple theory that even a child can understand without dumbing it down too much. It may look like that from a distance, but this is really not true. Darwin’s success was built on the foundation of a century or two’s careful work building up of an understanding of taxonomy and solid skills that allowed reliable and reproducible identification of species. There are good reasons why earlier versions of evolutionary theory convinced very few people (and why Darwin himself found them such an embarrassment that he was reluctant to put his own theory forward). Darwin (and Wallace) were really the first people able to build up a solid case, and it was built on the basis of the labors of hundreds of natural historians, both refining their taxonomical craft and building up a large catalog of well verified biological facts and reliably differentiated species, through the 18th and early 19th centuries. Darwin himself wsa very much aware of this, and held off announcing his theory until he himself had developed the skills and reputation of an expert taxonomist (which he had not had at the time of the Beagle voyage). It took him almost 20 years. And that is not to mention the work in geology that hugely expanded the age of the Earth, thus giving enough time for evolutionary processes to happen. It is really not until the late 18th century that advances in geology begin to give anyone anyone any reason at all to believe that the Earth is more than a few thousand years old, and it is not until the work of Lyell, in the 19th century, that a solid case for an age in the millions of years was built up. Lyell was an older contemporary (and, eventually, personal friend and mentor) of Darwin, and far and away the most important scientific influence on his thinking. Darwin, who had already done field work with Sedgewick, perhaps the best field geologist of the time, read Lyell’s work during his first few weeks on the Beagle, when it was newly published, and it changed his life. The ancients had nothing like any of this. They just had loose speculation (as in Anaximander) and unsystematic collections of, often unreliable, natural-historical anecdotes (as in Aristotle’s and Pliny the Elder’s natural histories). ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/22 "2014-01-24T09:40:30Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Yes. Frankly, I doubt whether it could be done even even now. It would require _extreme_ precision machining to get that many gear wheels to all work together without jamming up. The Science Museum has one. [http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/object\_images/535x535/10303265.jpg](http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/object_images/535x535/10303265.jpg) > [@](#): > > The London Science Museum’s difference engine, built from Babbage’s design. The design has the same precision on all columns, but when calculating polynomials, the precision on the higher-order columns could be lower. The Engine is not a replica (none was ever built during Babbage’s lifetime); therefore this is the first one — the original. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/23 "2014-01-24T11:22:44Z")
> [@gotpasswords](#): > > In the history of humans wearing clothes and having small things to take along, such as money, handkerchiefs or whatever, it amazes me that the development of pockets as an integral part of a garment didn’t happen until the late 1700s. Late 1500s/Early 1600s, actually. They appear on men’s trunkhose in the Elizabethan period. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/24 "2014-01-24T12:32:00Z")
> [@gotpasswords](#): > > In the history of humans wearing clothes and having small things to take along, such as money, handkerchiefs or whatever, it amazes me that the development of pockets as an integral part of a garment didn’t happen until the late 1700s. > > Perhaps it’s not a technological achievement on the same level as optics or electricity, but important nonetheless. Or the belt loop. It seems like such an obvious idea. But we invented the airplane before somebody had the idea to sew little loops of cloth on your pants to help hold them up. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/25 "2014-01-24T13:12:07Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > Hero of Alexandria created a lot of steam powered stuff, including a working steam engine. Unfortunately he considered it to be nothing more than an interesting toy. Basically, though, he had all of the stuff necessary to really start the industrial revolution around 50 AD but he just didn’t quite put it all together. Instead, we had to wait until the 1700s for it to really take off. Well besides metallurgy which was not really up to scratch. Or knowledge of the laws of thermodynamics. Or complex gears. Or plentiful cheap fuel supply like coal.Or a shortage of inexpensive labour. Next you will be saying that Tipun Sultan could have sent men to the moon because of the Mysore rockets. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/26 "2014-01-24T13:29:18Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > The Science Museum has one. [http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/object\_images/535x535/10303265.jpg](http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/object_images/535x535/10303265.jpg) I think you will find that that is a model of _part of_ Babbage’s Difference Engine, not a functional version of the whole thing. You linked just to the image, but here is the [actual Science Museum page](http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/computing_and_data_processing/1862-89.aspx), which refers to their model as a “trial portion of the Difference Engine”. In any case, (as my link will also tell you), the _Difference Engine_, even as designed (and, I believe, partially built in his time), was _not_ Babbage’s design for a computer. It was merely an advanced type of mechanical calculator. The Babbage design that, apparently, amounts to a true programmable computer in the modern sense is his _Analytical Engine_, a _much_ more complex beast (and certainly not actually built). Perhaps thanks to William Gibson’s novel, it is the name “_Difference Engine_” that has become more famous, but Babbage’s claim to have invented the computer rests not on his _Difference Engine_, but on his _Analytical Engine_ design. The page at my link does, however, claim that according to “recent research” Babbage’s design could, in principle, have been realized even given the technological capabilities of his own time, and of the engineer he worked with. However, it is not quite clear whether this refers to the _Analytical Engine_ or just the _Difference Engine_. In any case, I think the claim that it could be done (even now, let alone in Victorian times) deserves to be taken with a very large pinch of salt until someone actually tries to do it, and succeeds. (That it would work _in theory_ is no news to anybody.) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/27 "2014-01-24T13:36:02Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > I think you will find that that is a model of _part of_ Babbage’s Difference Engine, not a functional version of the whole thing. You linked just to the image, but here is the [actual Science Museum page](http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/computing_and_data_processing/1862-89.aspx), which refers to their model as a “trial portion of the Difference Engine”. They have completed a working replica\* of the whole thing now. > **[Difference engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine)** > > A difference engine is an automatic mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. It was designed in the 1820s, and was first created by Charles Babbage. The name difference engine is derived from the method of finite differences, a way to interpolate or tabulate functions by using a small set of polynomial co-efficients. Some of the most common mathematical functions used in engineering, science and navigation are built from logarithmic and trigonometric functions, which can b... There’s also a working one in California (also detailed on the linked page) \*Replica isn’t the right term, because: a)no original was ever completed and b)some of the details are (I believe) a little speculative due to incomplete documentation. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/28 "2014-01-24T13:42:21Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Well besides metallurgy which was not really up to scratch. Or knowledge of the laws of thermodynamics. Or complex gears. Or plentiful cheap fuel supply like coal.Or a shortage of inexpensive labour. > > Next you will be saying that Tipun Sultan could have sent men to the moon because of the Mysore rockets. Indeed. Even in Watt’s time, viable steam engines of any useful size, made to his design, were only possible because of quite recent advances in steel founding. The Watt steam engines were made by the Boulton and Watt company, and Watt had had to partner with Matthew Boulton because Boulton’s foundry was only one in Britain then capable of making steel cylinders of a practical size capable of standing up to the pressures upon which an efficient Watt engine depended. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/29 "2014-01-24T13:46:25Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > They have completed a working replica\* of the whole thing now. > > [Difference engine - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine) > > There’s also a working one in California (also detailed on the linked page) > > \*Replica isn’t the right term, because: a)no original was ever completed and b)some of the details are (I believe) a little speculative due to incomplete documentation. OK, but it is still the _Difference Engine_ (calculator) not the _Analytical Engine_ (computer). There is a huge difference in complexity involved in that crucial distinction. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/30 "2014-01-24T13:46:45Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Yes. Frankly, I doubt whether it could be done even even now. It would require _extreme_ precision machining to get that many gear wheels to all work together without jamming up. The level of precision is probably no greater than has been employed by watch and clock makers for centuries now. Besides, all of the gears in Babbage’s engines don’t have to work together - the machine is modular, comprising a collection of cascaded sub-mechanisms. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/31 "2014-01-24T13:56:18Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > OK, but it is still the _Difference Engine_ (calculator) not the _Analytical Engine_ (computer). There is a huge difference in complexity involved in that crucial distinction. There’s not a difference in the precision of engineering required though. Babbage was set back by lack of funds/support/time, not the engineering technology of the time. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/32 "2014-01-24T14:17:54Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > There’s not a difference in the precision of engineering required though. Babbage was set back by lack of funds/support/time, not the engineering technology of the time. I think there is. That was my original point. Every time you add more gear wheels to an interconnected system of gears the required precision increases as tiny errors that will not matter in a simple gear system begin to mount up, until the whole thing jams. > [@Mangetout](#): > > Besides, all of the gears in Babbage’s engines don’t have to work together - the machine is modular, comprising a collection of cascaded sub-mechanisms. A _lot_ of them would still have to work together. Anyway, the matter cannot be settled definitively until someone actually tries to make it. I an inclined to think it is telling that no-one yet seems to have even tried to make a working Analytical Engine. ---
**Author:** ![Bert\_Nobbins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@Bert\_Nobbins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bert_Nobbins)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/33 "2014-01-24T14:37:14Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > OK, but it is still the _Difference Engine_ (calculator) not the _Analytical Engine_ (computer). There is a huge difference in complexity involved in that crucial distinction. The Difference Engine is not even a general-purpose calculator. It can only calculate functions that are represented by a polynomial (look it up) though these are useful functions like sines, cosines, logs etc. It was said that its purpose was the production of error-free mathematical tables, though there is some doubt as to whether the existing tables were defective in any way that mattered. It has been suggested that Babbages’s main motivation was self-publicity. If so, it beats twerking. It would have been a much greater achievement if it had been a general-purpose calculator, though even then its usefulness relative to cost is questionable. It was the Analytical Engine that would have been truly revolutionary. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/34 "2014-01-24T14:41:03Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > I think there is. That was my original point. Every time you add more gear wheels to an interconnected system of gears the required precision increases as tiny errors that will not matter in a simple gear system begin to mount up, until the whole thing jams. No that’s the complete opposite of what I said. It was a project management failure, not an engineering one. Your argument appears to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the architecture of these devices - the thing isn’t like a stepped gearbox where you drive one gear and all the others are directly driven from it - it’s a series of mechanisms where the output of one is configured to _trigger_ the input of another. Adding more complexity doesn’t make the wheels harder to turn - it just means that it takes longer for the calculation to cascade through the machine. What you’re arguing is equivalent to saying that a cascade of 100 dominoes is possible, but not 1000, because they would be harder to knock over. > [@](#): > > A _lot_ of them would still have to work together. Have you actually seen the delicacy and precision of engineering of clock and watch mechanisms of the era (and before)? I can’t believe you think the state of the art at that time was too primitive. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/35 "2014-01-24T14:55:49Z")
1.) Gunpowder. No fundamental reason this couldn’t have been discovered earlier. 2.) The Law of Refraction – Claudius Ptolemy performed perfect experiments on this in the first century CE. He even derived a formula for it. it wasn’t correct, but it would have given correct results for the most commonly used middle angles (not for small angles, as some have stated – it was completely wrong for small angles). The problem was that no one used it after him – including Ptolemy himself. He or his pupils could have gone on to develop ray tracing and lens design, but no one was interested. They also would have discovered that the formula was wrong at small angles, which might have lead them to a more correct formula. alhazebn, similarly, came close without discovering it. Ibn Sahl in Baghdad discovered the correct form before the year 1000, and reportedly used it to design lenses, which took him further along than anyone else so far, but as far as I can tell, his work left no lasting legacy, and was only rediscovered recently. Similarly, Thomas Harriot rediscovered it in 1602, but, aside from correspondents (Like Kepler), didn’t publish. Nor did the guy who got his name on the law, Willebrord Snel (He didn’t use the second “l” in his name), so that Rene Descartes thought he had discovered it. Christiaan Huygens elaborated on it and explained it. To tell the truth, I don’t know who, after ibn sahl, first used it as a practical guide to lens making, but it must have been shortly after this. That’s when telescopes started to proliferate. 3.) The Laser – The laser didn’t get invented until the Maser showed the way, and it was derived by analogy. But there were papers theorizing about something similar much earlier. And there’s no reason that the laser couldn’t have been sdiscovered by experiment – people had been playing with discharge tubes long before, and partially reflecting mirrors had been around for a very long time. I could easily see someone wondering what would happen if they redirected discharge light back into itself between a pair of reflectors to see how it affected the light – but it didn’t happen. 4.) The Telegraph. Not the electric telegraph, which required developments in electrical conduction and batteries. I mean the Mechanical Telegraph, as was used in France in the Napoleonic era, and provided a way to send signals over long distances with more information than a signal fire. Heliographs fall into this category, as do naval Aldis signaling lamps and, of course, naval signal flags. There were all sorts of methods of “telegraphing”, using poles with arms, triangular boards and venetian blind-like structures, as well as simple semaphore. There’s no reason all of this couldn’t have been done back in the ancient world. L. Sprague de Camp describes his time traveler, Martin Padway, introducing it to Imperial Rome. 5.) Anesthesia – In Boston, they brag about the first operation performed under anesthetic at The Ether Dome, but others point out that Crawford W. Long was doing it earlier in the South. But people have long known that work can be performed on a person in deep alcohol inebriation. even better, you can work on someone intoxicated on opium. So why did anesthetized operations have to wait until the 19th century? Did it require the rise in stature of the surgeon above a mere barber to the same status as a doctor? did it fail because of a lack of anti-infection procedures 9like Lister’s), so that anyone who tried most of these died? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/36 "2014-01-24T14:59:12Z")
> [@pdunderhill](#): > > Hello good people, > > What ideas/implementations should or could humanity have discovered earlier? > > My pennysworth is the mechanical computer ala Babbage. > > P This is a GQ? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/37 "2014-01-24T15:10:06Z")
On a different note, some of the things I’m surprised didn’t happen earlier include some practical planning methods and tools that didn’t come about until the 19th-20th century, including [Gantt charts](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantt_chart). The stirrup remains my favorite answer for this, given the obvious need for such a device and the capabilities of the cultures and civilizations that needed it. Maybe only Imhotep needed a Gantt chart, but a lot more needed stirrups! ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/38 "2014-01-24T15:17:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Or the belt loop. It seems like such an obvious idea. But **we invented the airplane before somebody had the idea to sew little loops of cloth on your pants** to help hold them up. This is the most unbelievably mind-blowing fact I have ever learned at the SDope! ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/39 "2014-01-24T15:24:07Z")
The printing press. Why wait till the 16th century? There’s no reason why it couldn’t have been invented as soon as ink and parchment were in use. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559/40 "2014-01-24T15:25:06Z")
This is probably more suited to IMHO than GQ. Colibri General Questions Moderator [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technological-developments/679559.md?page=3)