In ancient times geeks used to sit around debating such important topics as:
I fire an arrow at a hare 100 yards away. When the arrow has travelled 100 yards the hare has run 10 yards further. When the arrow has travelled those 10 yards more, the hare has run another yard. When the arrow has travelled that yard, the hare has run still further. Therefore it is logically impossible to shoot a hare with an arrow.
If a man from Crete says “all Cretans are liars” is he telling the truth?
If an ass with a logical mind is shown two bales of hay, each of equal size, how shall he decide which to eat first?
If a tree falls in a forest, and there is nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?
A guard tells his prisoner that he shall be executed within the month, but that he shall not know the day before it dawns. Does this not mean the prisoner will never be executed?
I have a design for a catapult that will hurl a ball of burning sulphur for half a league.
Since over 40% of our country was farmers 100 years ago (only about 2% today) I’m guessing most geeks didn’t have too much time to toy around, and that type of environment probably doesn’t produce as many potential geeks as our modern age does. There were probably very few geeks roaming the earth before this century, people just didn’t have the time, education, or raw materials.
“Archimedes became a popular figure as a result of his involvement in the defense of Syracuse against the Roman siege in the First and Second Punic Wars. He is reputed to have held the Romans at bay with war engines of his design; to have been able to move a full-size ship complete with crew and cargo by pulling a single rope; to have discovered the principles of density and buoyancy, also known as Archimedes’ principle, while taking a bath (thereupon taking to the streets naked calling “eureka” - “I have found it!”); and to have invented the irrigation device known as Archimedes’ screw. He has also been credited with the possible invention of the odometer during the First Punic War. One of his inventions used for military defense of Syracuse against the invading Romans was the claw of Archimedes.”
He was also killed despite orders from the enemy NOT to kill him for reasons much like your typical nerd in a bad sci-fi film who is the only one that knows how to save the world.
Other than him, I can only think of the Sumerian stamp-makers and those people who spent decades at polishing skulls out of diamonds. Oh, and maybe all those early astronomers, like maybe the authors of the Rigveda.
For that matter, the mythic Daedalus is pretty geeky.
Designed a labyrinth, indoor plumbing including hot and cold water, and a flying machine.
When one king wanted to know if another king was harboring Daedalus, he gave him a conch shell and a spool of thread, telling him of a rich reward if he could actually thread the shell. When he received a threaded shell the next day, he knew the king was hiding Daedalus.
The geeks of the 20th century precursing electronics and computers were the amateur radio operators who spent endless hours building transmitters and receivers from spark transmitters and crystal receivers to experimenting with vacuum tubes and then on to transisters and integrated circuits.
Many served in the Radio Corps, and many operators, trained in the service, continued to be active in amateur radio after the war.
Chemistry, and its geeky offshoot, photography. The ironmongery of steam is still a geeky preoccupation. In truth some Geeks never left the steam age. When gasoline came around, Geeks busied themselves with the wonder of flight. To a lesser extent, printing.
Was anyone ever more Geeky that the Wright Brothers?
Even in agricultural societies there is often a lot of down time during the winter after the crops have been harvested. People would spend their time in crafts or making or repairing equipment, just the sort of puttering type of activity that a geek would be well suited for. And geekiness is a state of mind - it doesn’t depend much on eduction or raw materials. Give a geek a pocket knife and some bits of wood, and in a short time he’ll have whittled you an abacus.
IIRC Pockets weren’t common until at least 1000 AD. Even then, you only had coat pockets. Pants had no pockets. Men carried things in pouches hung from a belt. Again IIRC around the 1770’s there was a fad for walking sticks with hidden compartments for snuff boxes, make up, etc. I’d imagine that geeks of the time carried quills and inkwells in their canes.
:smack:
I forgot Sir Francis Galton. He was a perfect example of what a geek could do without modern technology. Galton studied and recorded everything he could think of. A common method was to wear a thimble with a small pin attached to it and make holes in a card. He would keep that hand in his pocket and mark the card. In one study, he would visit towns and mark one of three columns as a woman went by. He was trying to determine which town in England had the most attractive women and which had the ugliest.
Galton attempted to use composite photography of criminals and asylum inmates to see if there were common characteristics which could be used to identify criminals or the insane.
While journeying through Africa, Galton wanted to record the measurements of the women of various villages. At first, he tried using a tape measure. They misunderstood his intentions and there was trouble. So, Galton would determine their measurements by use of a sextant.
Re Spears
Anybody can sharpen a rock to make a spearpoint or digging tool. But the progression of prehistoric tools (I can’t remember if it goes from Magdalenian to Mousterian or the other way. Anthro 101 was years ago) does show a geek at work. One change was from taking a rock that was roughly the right size and carving away at it until you had a tool, to taking a big rock and napping flakes of the needed size. The tools got smaller, lighter, and worked better.
The bow and arrow also show a geek at work. The spear needed no geek. The progression of 'Kill animal. Kill animal by bashing with rock. Kill animal by bashing with sharp rock. Kill animal by bashing with sharp rock tied to big stick is fairly obvious. The idea of a bow and arrow isn’t obvious and making one isn’t easy. The Urgeeks (the bow and arrow have been discovered independently in many places) must have experimented with many types of wood, and many shapes, many materials for bowstrings and other things.
The atlatl was also the clear work of a geek. Everybody else was throwing spears. An Urgeek discovered the lever. Using a lever, the geek could throw the spear much farther.
Galton used thimbles and cards to count everything. He counted how many times audience members would fidget during lectures. He counted how many men wore hats. He counted everything.
> I think a more useful definition of geek in our sense might be something along
> the lines of: “A person who is so dedicated to the pursuit of one area of
> esoteric knowledge, often scientifically or technologically based, as to threaten
> or stunt his or her personal growth and social development.” In which case,
> there would have been no industrial revolution without geeks.
But these are two separate definitions or maybe even three. The one is somebody who tinkers with things to improve them. Maybe there’s also a second one about somebody who collects esoteric knowledge, which isn’t quite the same thing. Then there’s the third definition, which is people whose personal growth and social development are stunted. Is there really any evidence that in old times people who tinkered with things or who collected esoteric knowledge had their personal growth and social development stunted? I’m not looking for random anecdotes (which are too easy to find) or arguments from analogy (like “Well, the sorts of people are considered weird today, so they must always have been perceived as weird”), but something like statements from people in earlier times that they tended to lump all these sorts together. I think what you’re doing is assuming that tinkering and esoteric knowledge today are supposedly stunting social development, so that must always have been true.
> Galton used thimbles and cards to count everything. He counted how many
> times audience members would fidget during lectures. He counted how many
> men wore hats. He counted everything.
I think the usual word for this is “obsessive-compulsive.”
Also, in medieval times, book-making was done by hand. Innovations aside, the parchment making, calligraphy, and binding would have absorbed a lot of ‘urge to fiddle’. Not to mention the art of illumination.
There was also dyeing, which required specialized knowledge and benefitted from innovation. And cookery required knowledge of the proper blending of the humors inherent in both foodstuffs and cooking methonds and knowledge of which foods would open the stomach (and should go at the beginning of the meal) and which closed it (and should go at the end).