Okay, piggy-backing off the 1820 thread, but with another twist. You go back in time, but instead of being naked, you can bring back the most technically advanced invention (we’ll say of unlimited size I suppose) invented since 1820, with a caveat being, the invention has to be able to be reverse engineered and be put into production within 5 years. The finest minds of 1820 could be put to the task. Forget about moral or other implications of bringing this thing into the word early.
I was going to say an internal combustion engine, but you’re only saving 40 years or so.
If you wanted to be evil about it, take back an AK47. Take the bullets to some chemists – smokeless powder is only 20 years away, and your bullets could be the extra kick in the pants they need to develop it sooner. Producing that rifle in the 1800s would require the world’s best and brightest mettalurgists and a while lot of money, but if you find a monarch (or revolutionary, though sadly you just missed Napoleon) to back you, you could conquer the world!
I believe the experiment that worked started on a stove top, but would you know to experiment with adding sulfur to rubber to do the experiments?
If you had the heads up to research it, the process would be fairly easy to duplicate though.
Honestly a book of patents (with the drawings) from 1850-1900 would be the best thing to bring back. You should be able to replicate almost everything in the book within a few years.
Can I control where on the globe the time machine deposits me in 1820? If so, I would choose to be deposited on the front steps of the Royal Society in London. That way, I could ask for Royal Society President Sir Humphry Davy by name – and ask for the assistance of Charles Babbage and one of Davy’s best students, Michael Faraday.
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Perhaps bring back an early hydrocarbon cracking rig to save ~70 years on the development of modern gasoline? And also make kerosene much easier and cheaper to produce.
I’m gonna say a pachinko machine, or an early, entirely mechanical pinball machine. Bars bought the early pinball machines, and people gambled money on the outcomes, which became illegal in some states.
Anyway, they couldn’t be produced fast enough in the beginning, and there was some patent infringing, and suing, and making enough changes to avoid patent infringement accusations.
Pachinko machines are not as popular in the US as they are in Japan, but I’m here to tell you they can be pretty addicting. And even though they are made with a lot of plastic, I’m sure you can make one entirely of wood and tin, and just a little glass.
21st century pachinko machines are solid-state, but until pretty recently (in the grand scope of making things electronic), they remained entirely mechanical for a very long time. I mean, through the 80s, they had lights that flashed when certain things happened, but they were all show; they had nothing to do with the functioning of the machine.
I’d imagine it would be very possible to reverse engineer alternators and motors - its mainly an engineering thing and such skills were available at that time - might even go as far as electric lights.
The prime movers were already working - steam engines and water wheels so you are already well on the way.
I went to the same place, but not as complex. I would arrive with a Kar98 Mauser rifle and ammo. Bolt action still makes it light years ahead of the standard of the day, and much easier to manufacture and adapt.
I feel this is quite an impossible task as you specify it has to be in production in five years. Even if they already understand the complete process, it may well take much more than five years to simply set up the infrastructure, in particular as you may need the basic materials.
Even nowadays it may take five years to put a prototype in production, in order to find space, hire people, set up machinery and the like.
I’d say it should suffice if they can recreate the basic process (proof of concept). That can be done with lab technicians in a controlled environment.
Can you give them pointers or do they need to figure it out all on their own?
My preference would be to put society on the way to electrification and digital equipment. However, that is hard as valve and transistor technology can’t be created in five years. I’d like a simple electric engine with a car battery .A car battery is fairly simple technology as far as I understand it, and the basics of an electric engine are also fairly easy to reproduce. By showing what can be done with electricity, you might help to inspire people to look in this direction.
I believe the bicycle was not developed sooner because there were no suitable roads or paths to ride them on. Most foot or horsetrails would be bone-jarring on a bike.
I believe that the widespread adoption of the bicycle depended upon the availability of ball bearings. Ball bearings and the pneumatic tire (developed later) gave the bicycle a marked advantage over walking.
My choice for a machine would be a 1900’s precision lathe with accessories. The lathe is called the queen of machine tools, because it can reproduce itself and can make other machine tools. I specify a 1900’s lathe because it was still possible to find one that ran from a belt, so it could be powered by a waterwheel.
Regarding the earlier remark about the Model T. An early Stanley Steamer might just be feasible - although running it on whale oil would be expensive.
They could have hours of fun disassembling it, then lots of time understanding the mechanisms and their operation, all of which would be understandable with the math and engineering of the time. Shows how a real Difference Engine could be built more simply. It could kick-start computing in the same way that William Gibson and Bruce Sterling suggest in their novel The Difference Engine
