# Things that could have been invented sooner ... but weren't **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 7, 2010, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607 "2010-05-07T05:50:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/41 "2010-05-08T21:22:46Z")
Oh yeah, putting a cover over buttons is really cutting edge. ---
**Author:** ![hougaswd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@hougaswd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hougaswd)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/42 "2010-05-09T01:33:26Z")
Concrete. The ancient Romans had it, but the secret was lost for 13 centuries. [Concrete - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete) Sanitary sewers. Screw propeller. Chain drive for bicycles. Orrery (mechanical astronomical computer). The Greek Antikythera mechanism was constructed about 100 BC, or about 15 centuries before it was reinvented in western Europe. [Antikythera mechanism - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism) ---
**Author:** ![hougaswd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@hougaswd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hougaswd)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/43 "2010-05-09T01:43:54Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > The **Minié** ball, or one of it’s contemporary cousins. Basically, a conical piece of lead with an indentation in the base that allows you to load a rifled musket as quickly as a smoothbore musket. Quadruples the range at which you can hit a man-sized target. There’s no reason this couldn’t have been invented as far back as the matchlock arquebus circa 1500 AD, and it would have changed over three hundred years of military history. But in our timeline it was only invented about 15-20 years before machine tooled breechloaders and the brass cartridge made muskets obsolete. Wasn’t the invention of the rifled gun barrel equally important? The Minie ball isn’t that much of an improvement without it. Walt ---
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/44 "2010-05-09T02:01:17Z")
The hot-air balloon. Mankind has been sitting around fires for millennia, watching the smoke and ashes rising up from it. I’m surprised it never once occurred to anyone to try to capture some smoke in a bag and see if it could lift something aloft before the late 18th century. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/45 "2010-05-09T02:18:19Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > This is a thread for listing things that could have been invented long before they actually were. By that I mean that all the supporting technology was there, but nobody thought to put it all together. > > Here’s one: **Animated Cartoons**. 5000 years ago the ancient Egyptians had everything they needed to make animated flip-books using papyrus. But it wasn’t until the 19th century that anybody noticed you could create the illusion of motion by rapidly riffing through a series of drawing. In retrospect it’s kind of amazing that it wasn’t stumbled on earlier. The obvious drawback to this for most of human history is that paper or paper-analogues were expensive and often difficult to obtain. Few people had the opportunity to doodle much, and even if someone had the idea for a flip book it would be costly to get the paper to put one together. The scroll format so popular in the ancient world also doesn’t lend itself to the production of flip books. I’m not sure how easily papyrus flips either. So while a papyrus flip book may technically have been possible, it doesn’t surprise me that no one ever had the idea (or it didn’t catch on if they did). I can imagine some medieval monk in a scriptorium doodling in the corners of the text he was copying or illuminating, but I can also imagine him being severely punished for disrespecting an important work – and a work that wasn’t important wouldn’t have been copied. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/46 "2010-05-09T02:21:14Z")
> [@hougaswd](#): > > Wasn’t the invention of the rifled gun barrel equally important? The Minie ball isn’t that much of an improvement without it. > > Walt The rifle was invented fairly early, but was used primarily as a hunting weapon because it was too slow to load with the round ball used at the time. The innovation of the Minie ball was that it had enough clearance to be rammed down the barrel but would engage the rifling when fired. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/47 "2010-05-09T05:22:46Z")
> [@hougaswd](#): > > Chain drive for bicycles. While we’re on the subject, how about bicycles or tricycles? You would’ve thought that the Greeks, Romans, or Chinese would’ve at least come up with some prototypes but [the first tricycle wasn’t invented until 1680](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricycle#History) and [bicycles didn’t really appear on the scene until the 19th century.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_bicycle) ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/48 "2010-05-09T05:24:13Z")
Sanitary sewers??!! That’s crazy talk! There’s not much point to them if you have to keep them clean. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/49 "2010-05-09T17:45:40Z")
> [@SlowMindThinking](#): > > There are similar problems with most of the suggestions above, with the exception of anal beads. So, I’m going to suggest the bikini. Google image search Roman bikini, for some pre-medieval examples. > [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > I seem to recall a Sci-Fi (Definitely not SF!) story about a Confederate-sympathizing scientist who used a time machine to deliver a very simple sub-machine gun (possibly a [Sten gun](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sten_gun)) to the Southern side in the Civil War. He claimed that the design and manufacture of the gun was well within reach of the technology of the day, once they had a prototype. > > No idea if this claim would have been true. You might be able to make a Sten gun with 1860 era machine tool technology, but you couldn’t shoot a Sten with black powder. In 1860 they’d heard of nitrocellulose and had tried using it as a “smokeless powder”, but it had a nasty habit of spontaneously detonating. It was towards the end of the nineteenth century that a process for stablizing nitro-based powders was worked out, yielding cordite and similar products. Our fictional time traveler could have also shown them how to make cordite, but I think this is pushing the “could have been invented” premise of the OP. (Also, I doubt that the underindustrialized South could have made much use of advanced weapon plans, with little advanced manufacturing capacity.) > [@NDP](#): > > While we’re on the subject, how about bicycles or tricycles? You would’ve thought that the Greeks, Romans, or Chinese would’ve at least come up with some prototypes but [the first tricycle wasn’t invented until 1680](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricycle#History) and [bicycles didn’t really appear on the scene until the 19th century.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_bicycle) Are pedal-driven designs really practical without either paved roads or pneumatic tires? Also, I’ve heard it said that an ordinary bicycle is actually a sophisticated piece of engineering, not something a blacksmith and carpenter could hack out. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/50 "2010-05-09T19:19:06Z")
> [@LouiseE](#): > > The printing press. Metal type would have been a stretch, but fired-clay would have been a snap. Why bother with clay? Just use wood. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/51 "2010-05-09T22:38:49Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Are pedal-driven designs really practical without either paved roads or pneumatic tires? Also, I’ve heard it said that an ordinary bicycle is actually a sophisticated piece of engineering, not something a blacksmith and carpenter could hack out. The Romans and the Chinese had extensive networks of paved roads. However, their lack of pneumatic tires would’ve been a problem. They probably would’ve had to use cartwheels which would’ve made the ride bumpy to say the least. Perhaps some sort of tricycle could’ve been built to transport things and for message-couriers but, overall, oxen would be more effective for the former and horses better for the latter. [QUOTE=Quartz] Why bother with clay? Just use wood. [/QUOTE] This depends on the quality of the wood or clay used but I would think type made of clay would look and hold up better over extensive use. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/52 "2010-05-11T20:00:42Z")
> [@Jet\_Jaguar](#): > > The hot-air balloon. Mankind has been sitting around fires for millennia, watching the smoke and ashes rising up from it. I’m surprised it never once occurred to anyone to try to capture some smoke in a bag and see if it could lift something aloft before the late 18th century. ..I could see why no one would necessarily want to do that…after all you do have stand IN fire in order to catch the air. ---
**Author:** ![Imasquare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Imasquare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imasquare)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/53 "2010-05-12T07:28:25Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Maybe ATMs? I seem to recall a banker quoted back in the 1980s as saying they had the technology for them as early as the 1960s and could have saved a lot in expenses if they’d only developed them that early. The first ATMs as we know them today were brought into use in the 1960s… > [@](#): > > A mechanical cash dispenser was developed and built by Luther George Simjian and installed in 1939 in New York City by the City Bank of New York, but removed after 6 months due to the lack of customer acceptance.[1] > > The ATM got smaller, faster and easier over the years. Thereafter, the history of ATMs paused for over 25 years, until De La Rue developed the first electronic ATM, which was installed first in Enfield Town in North London, United Kingdom[2] on 27 June 1967 by Barclays Bank.[3] This instance of the invention is credited to John Shepherd-Barron, although various other engineers were awarded patents for related technologies at the time.[4] Shepherd-Barron was awarded an OBE in the 2005 New Year’s Honours List.[5] The first person to use the machine was the British variety artist and actor Reg Varney.[6] The first ATMs accepted only a single-use token or voucher, which was retained by the machine. These worked on various principles including radiation and low-coercivity magnetism that was wiped by the card reader to make fraud more difficult.[4] The machine dispensed pre-packaged envelopes containing ten pounds sterling. The idea of a PIN stored on the card was developed by the British engineer James Goodfellow in 1965.[4] > > However, the modern, networked ATM was invented in Dallas, Texas, by Don Wetzel in 1968. > **[automatic teller machine](https://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Automatic%20Teller%20Machine)** > > Wikipedia article about automatic teller machine The first time I saw one was in 1980. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/54 "2010-05-12T10:04:32Z")
Clipper ships. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/55 "2010-05-12T10:34:43Z")
> [@SlowMindThinking](#): > > So, I’m going to suggest the bikini. The bikini has been around for at least 1,002,010 [years](http://www.cineforever.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/raquel-2.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/56 "2010-05-12T13:18:11Z")
Heh—I remember the old [Secret Life of Machines](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V69ZXPJxyZs#t=5m28s) episode featuring the history and workings of the fax machine, even featuring a [pair of Pantelegraphs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantelegraph). Anyway, some (all?) of the early gliders—such as Lilenthal’s, or the Wright Gliders, don’t seem to have any major technical challenges to making them sooner. I’ll leave it up to more knowledgeable Dopers as to _how_ much sooner, or how much of a stretch it would be to build something with the capability of, say, even a modern hang glider…though, now that I think of it, the existence of [manned kites](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-lifting_kite) might mean it wouldn’t be that far fetched at all. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/57 "2010-05-12T15:00:33Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I’d say the steam engine. The capacity to make one supposedly existed back in ancient Greece where people would create metal objects with 2 arms at 90 degree angles, then fill it with water and put it over a fire until it started spinning in circles. However it was used as a novelty toy and nobody thought to use that device (using steam pressure to move metal parts) to perform manual labor until the industrial revolution. Thing is, for a practical steam engine you need at least two things: enough good quality metal to make a decent pressure boiler and a cheap source of fuel (in 1800, this was coal; there was a brief period where there was enough wood from virgin forests in North America to use that for running trains, but only a brief period). The Romans had neither coal mines nor large tracts of virgin forest near their industrial areas, and metallurgy was not at 1820’s standards. (And remember, it wasn’t until after 1800 or so that England’s metallurgy got good enough to make decent steam engines) > [@Lumpy](#): > > The **Minié** ball, or one of it’s contemporary cousins. Basically, a conical piece of lead with an indentation in the base that allows you to load a rifled musket as quickly as a smoothbore musket. Quadruples the range at which you can hit a man-sized target. There’s no reason this couldn’t have been invented as far back as the matchlock arquebus circa 1500 AD, and it would have changed over three hundred years of military history. But in our timeline it was only invented about 15-20 years before machine tooled breechloaders and the brass cartridge made muskets obsolete. I wonder how well minie balls would have worked in the era when muskets were built individually. Wasn’t the big innovation of the Eli Whitney era that parts were standardized enough that you could use the parts from one musket on another one and have them fit well enough to work? If the barrel on a smoothbore musket is a little bigger or smaller than standard, no big deal since the round ball wasn’t supposed to fit perfectly anyway. Does a minie ball require tighter tolerances? ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/58 "2010-05-12T15:25:46Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > Heh—I remember the old Secret Life of Machines episode featuring the history and workings of the fax machine, even featuring a pair of Pantelegraphs. Yeah, Tim Hunkin rules!🙂 ---
**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:** [May 12, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/59 "2010-05-12T15:26:35Z")
> [@](#): > > I wonder how well minie balls would have worked in the era when muskets were built individually. Wasn’t the big innovation of the Eli Whitney era that parts were standardized enough that you could use the parts from one musket on another one and have them fit well enough to work? If the barrel on a smoothbore musket is a little bigger or smaller than standard, no big deal since the round ball wasn’t supposed to fit perfectly anyway. as Schenkman pointed out in his _Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History_, Interchangeable parts preceded Eli Whitney. He mentions the work of Honore Blanc, for instance. Upon checking Wikipedia, I find that Blanc (and others) only preceded Eli Whitney by a quarter of a century or so. Even so, it certainly wasn’t widespread: > **[Interchangeable parts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchangeable_parts)** > > Interchangeable parts are components that are identical for practical purposes. They are made to specifications that ensure that they are so nearly identical that they will fit into any assembly of the same type. One such part can freely replace another, without any custom fitting, such as filing. This interchangeability allows easy assembly of new devices, and easier repair of existing devices, while minimizing both the time and skill required of the person doing the assembly or repair. > The c... Your point about tolerancing is, I think, very significant. So is improvement in manufacturability James Burke, in his book and series _Connections_, points out that it was the ability to grind pistons to to be very close to the size of the chamber they must fit in that made the Watt steam engine possible – before that, too much power was lost in the gas vented around the cylinder. Similarly, the principle behind the incandescent light was appreciated and known before Edison (and others) built theirs – it was really that lack of a sufficiently effective vacuum pump that kept the dream from becoming reality – earlier vacuum pumps left in enough residual gas to oxidize the filament. we had a discussion on this Board a long time ago about Sound Movies. Even before they found the sound recording associated with the Dickson Sound Film ( [The Dickson Experimental Sound Film - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickson_Experimental_Sound_Film) ), it was obvious from the presence of the phonograph there that this was a case of simultaneous sound and image recording, obviously with the intent of having a sound film in 1894/5. In fact, since Edison invented the the phonograph and co-invented the motion picture, it’d be very surprising if he didn’t consider joining the two technologies. There certainly were sound films long before _the Jazz Singer_ (which, by the way, used a phonograph, not film-based technology – even though film-based sound recording had been developed and demonstrated before its release). What kept Sound Films from being an earlier phenomenon was the lack of a usable Sound Amplifier (which, not coincidentally, also relied on good vacuums, since it used vacuum tubes) to allow you to show the film to an audience bigger than what could be gathered around a phonograph. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607/60 "2010-05-12T19:18:30Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > I wonder how well minie balls would have worked in the era when muskets were built individually. Wasn’t the big innovation of the Eli Whitney era that parts were standardized enough that you could use the parts from one musket on another one and have them fit well enough to work? If the barrel on a smoothbore musket is a little bigger or smaller than standard, no big deal since the round ball wasn’t supposed to fit perfectly anyway. > > Does a minie ball require tighter tolerances? Othe other hand, just how did they make round ball for hunting rifles? I presume someone would experiment with different sized ball until they found one that was close enough to their rifle’s bore to work, then keep that mold for making their own ball. (I presume the tolerance of the ball is easier to control than the rifle bore.) Minie balls might require having every rifled musket matched with it’s own custom bullet mold, so it does seem a bit less practical than I’d thought; but perhaps not insurmountably so. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-could-have-been-invented-sooner-but-werent/538607.md?page=4)