# The Butterfly-In-a-Box Effect **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 9, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391 "2014-01-09T21:24:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Slypork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@Slypork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slypork)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/81 "2014-01-10T21:03:52Z")
I know a long bow wouldn’t fit in a 2x2x2 box but a compound bow scaled down to about 3’ (the corner to corner measurement) would fit nicely. Anyone who opened the box would immediately recognize it as a variation on a standard bow. Take it to a competent smithy and/or archer and they would be able to divine how it works. Pulleys had been around for centuries so they would be able to figure out the advantages of the system. Make the bow out of metal (remember a bow is basically a leaf spring) instead of some “modern” material and they can extrapolate how to make it bigger, up to and including ballista size. Now you send it to France. William hasn’t conquered England yet so he now has a new tool in his arsenal. The French can use it to push back the Holy Roman Empire which will postpone or limit its power. Would the Crusades still happen? With a strong France would there ever be an Inquisition? With both France and England now armed with the same weapon the English no longer have the advantage of the longbow they used with such devastating effect during the 100 Year’s War. Since the arrows now can travel further and with more force the limitations of armored knights and steeds would be discovered earlier. Attempting to compensate for the weapons would eventually reach a point of diminishing returns and armored men would be eliminated. Would having such a powerful long range weapon in the armory delay the use of gunpowder in battle? The 100 Year’s War brought about an era of French and English nationalism. Would that still happen? Or could the two nations combine their common heritage and take over Europe? Could they push the Church back into Italy? Would the Renaissance still happen without a strong Church? Imagine Marco Polo traveling to 13th Century China with these weapons. It’s interesting to think of just how much could be altered with one little device. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/82 "2014-01-10T21:34:46Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > They’d have to have knowhow of developing the film and keeping it unexposed (i.e. not opening the film compartment.) > > An instant Polaroid avoids these issues. I imagine, they’d inadvertently click the button, and the polaroid would spit out the white, still-developing square picture, exposed to the lovely Mediterranean sun, as it develops magically before their eyes. Perhaps a blurred image at first, but the Greeks were no dummies at that time. I think they’d pick up what the device did in no time. > > Once they got it, who know’s what they might snap pics of. Caesar even? This clear Christian miracle might even be preserved by the Pope at the time (Benedict VIII no less), and end up in the archives of the Vatican. > > And hence, Catholicism would take an unlikely scientific bent, averting the dark ages! It could happen. The problem is most Polaroid camera only hold about 10 sheets of film. So once they take ten pictures, it’s all over. ---
**Author:** ![Saltire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saltire/32/553_2.png) [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/83 "2014-01-10T21:46:03Z")
A few reams of rough paper and a small kit for making more. Not sure how to convey how to use the kit items, but I know any scholar would be excited about the paper enough to work on figuring it out. Cheap and plentiful paper was as important as the printing press to the information explosion in the fifteenth century. I’d send it to one of the good Irish abbeys. They’d have people there who could make use of it. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/84 "2014-01-10T21:54:31Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > The problem is most Polaroid camera only hold about 10 sheets of film. So once they take ten pictures, it’s all over. Fill the rest of the box up with spare film rolls or strips or pads or whatever Polaroid used and hope somebody can puzzle out how to reload the camera without breaking it. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/85 "2014-01-10T22:14:30Z")
Considering clock towers were of paramount importance for the Industrial Revolution : an ultra accurate clock. Send it to that fella Roger Bacon, he seemed to know what’s what. You can scrub off the numbers as long as the hands are still accurate. Hmm, make that a _sturdy_ accurate clock. Wouldn’t want the thing to break because some lummox bonked it with a mallet to see what’s in it or stop that infernal ticking. Second choice would be a perfect sphere of solid titanium (or possibly something insanely radioactive ? hmm), polished so that no casting, forging or man-made marks of any kind remain. No particular purpose, just to fuck with their heads. ---
**Author:** ![Slypork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@Slypork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slypork)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/86 "2014-01-10T22:36:39Z")
Really screw with their minds and send a Furby to the altar in the Vatican. It doesn’t speak English so there is no language issue to violate the Czarcasm Temporal Prime Directive. It would open its eyes, start babbling and moving and before you could say “Beelzebub!” you’d have a lot of clerics soiling their cassocks. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/87 "2014-01-10T22:45:19Z")
Given the ability to include non vocal audio, I’d send a musical black box. As near indestructible as possible, it would play music when the handle was turned. Hopefully, it would be such a wonder as to quickly make it into the hands of the powerful and possibly even be traded amongst them as a marvel for hundreds of years. However, it would have another function: audio and visual recording. Being impregnable, no one would ever know. Nor would there be any playback mechanism, in fact. It would just sit, quietly recording everything around whenever it was played. After 1000 years we pull it out of whatever museum it ended up in, and eavesdrop on a millennium of conversations. Some might be of genuine historical import, but all would give an insight into how people really thought, spoke and lived. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/88 "2014-01-10T22:47:40Z")
> [@Saltire](#): > > A few reams of rough paper and a small kit for making more. Not sure how to convey how to use the kit items, but I know any scholar would be excited about the paper enough to work on figuring it out. Cheap and plentiful paper was as important as the printing press to the information explosion in the fifteenth century. > > I’d send it to one of the good Irish abbeys. They’d have people there who could make use of it. Against the rules. See post 12. No “formerly live” items. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/89 "2014-01-10T22:49:00Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Given the ability to include non vocal audio, I’d send a musical black box. As near indestructible as possible, it would play music when the handle was turned. Hopefully, it would be such a wonder as to quickly make it into the hands of the powerful and possibly even be traded amongst them as a marvel for hundreds of years. > > However, it would have another function: audio and visual recording. Being impregnable, no one would ever know. Nor would there be any playback mechanism, in fact. It would just sit, quietly recording everything around whenever it was played. After 1000 years we pull it out of whatever museum it ended up in, and eavesdrop on a millennium of conversations. Some might be of genuine historical import, but all would give an insight into how people really thought, spoke and lived. If this worked it would be really cool. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/90 "2014-01-10T22:51:06Z")
As many cartons of Marlboros as I could cram in, and a fuelled up Zippo. ---
**Author:** ![Slypork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@Slypork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slypork)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/91 "2014-01-10T23:07:34Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > As many cartons of Marlboros as I could cram in, and a fuelled up Zippo. A Hustler and a bottle of baby lotion. ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/92 "2014-01-10T23:22:19Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I think the intent of “the officials” was pretty clear, though, so the rule is revised: No audio, either. Why do so many of your threads go this way? Do you just really enjoy being “the officials”? ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/93 "2014-01-10T23:51:20Z")
Rules schmules. Everything we send back will be covered in bacteria, live or dead. I’d like to figure out some way to inoculate native Americans against European diseases and see how that tips the scales. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/94 "2014-01-11T01:29:38Z")
> [@Slypork](#): > > A Hustler and a bottle of baby lotion. A big bag of Curiously Strong Mints, whittled into suppositories. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/95 "2014-01-11T02:54:51Z")
Hell send them a Rubik’s cube. It will drive them nuts, trying to figure out why anyone would make such a device. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/96 "2014-01-11T03:03:01Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > The shoes I’m wearing right now. > > Longstoryshort, i do not like to try on shoes. I find ones I like in my size, pay and go. These shoes were on sale, looked nice, but I’ve grown to hate them. They are awkward to wear (the shoe is designed to rock like a rocking chair). My gf finds my shoe purchasing behavior maddening. I am too frugal to just throw the shoes away, so for the last year (they are made well, I’ll give them that) I have just been suffering in silence. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > and what do you hope would be the result? “Wot’s this, then?” “Looks like shoes from the distant future.” “Why’re they so fooking uncomfortable?” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/97 "2014-01-11T06:15:39Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Hell send them a Rubik’s cube. It will drive them nuts, trying to figure out why anyone would make such a device. If you want to drive them nuts, send them a Pet Rock. ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/98 "2014-01-11T07:10:21Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > If you want to drive them nuts, send them a Pet Rock. In order to drive them crazy with this, you’d have to violate the rules of the OP by sending them a description of what it is. Otherwise, it’s just a rock. Please stick to the topic. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/99 "2014-01-11T08:20:47Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > The shoes I’m wearing right now. > > Longstoryshort, i do not like to try on shoes. I find ones I like in my size, pay and go. These shoes were on sale, looked nice, but I’ve grown to hate them. They are awkward to wear (the shoe is designed to rock like a rocking chair). My gf finds my shoe purchasing behavior maddening. I am too frugal to just throw the shoes away, so for the last year (they are made well, I’ll give them that) I have just been suffering in silence. **kayaker** , that’s deep. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391/100 "2014-01-11T08:24:44Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > So…a singing, dancing frog is out? Rats! LMAO - loved this one! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-butterfly-in-a-box-effect/678391.md?page=6)