Stranded without Edison

[Ahriman238]

In the last 5 years or so I've read a lot of stories about modern man being cast back through time or otherwise stranded in a primitive culture and forced to basically recreate the Industrial Revolution from memory. These include but are not limited to the 1630/Ring of Fire series, the Safehold series, the Destroyermen series and a Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

And of course, there are our own threads on America/China/Canada going back in time.

My questions to you are; If sent back to preindustrial times, say Rome 50 AD (or CE, in an alternate universe so no worries about fucking up history) as a baseline, how much technology could you actually recreate? How would you do it? How much infastructure would you need?

Basically, what would you need to know before being sent back in such a manner?

For instance, I have a vague notion of how to make gunpowder from saltpeter. But I have no real idea what saltpeter is or how to obtain it. Similarly, I know from the Destroyermen books that I can create acetylene gas (and thus, if I have an airtight container and a striker, an acetylene torch) by combining calcium carbide with water. Calcium carbide is obtained by mixing coke and lime at 2000 degrees. But I don't know how I'd construct a furnace capable of 2000 degree flame.

If I were sent back, I could certainly recreate a movable-type press and a cotton gin with ease. Though I don't think there was cotton in that part of the world at that time. With some trial and error, I could probably fashion a (very) crude steam engine and electric generator. I feel like I'm half there for a telegraph: get an insulated copper wire, electric power to it, and something to interrupt the current. I just don't know how to turn the current interruptions into sound when they reach the end.

I know enough about the basic principles behind the internal compustion engine, lightbulb, and aviation that I could probably get there with a decade or two of trial and error. Could you do better?

[Spectre_nz]

I'm reasonably confident I could produce steam engines, gunpowder and early chemistry from a pre-industrial base. I do chemistry and I read up on alchemy for entertainment so I know roughly how early chemistry got off the ground. I know metalworking and could build a simple smelter if I had the time. I’d work even quicker if I had the co-operation of some iron-workers and I could just give them tips like “blow air through it” and “add coke” and “Calcine it to get the sulphur out”. I'd be a lot better off if I could take back some reference manuals on alchemy...

My stumbling block would probably be motivating locals to harness and create the required infrastructure. Mining coal, manufacturing precision glass objects and the machinery needed to manufacture a threaded screw evenly and reproducibly probably isn’t of high importance for your average mob of pre-industrial peasants.
And I’d spend a lot of time using the new tools I made to make and refine another tool without producing anything immediately useful for the locals. Only useful to me to produce another, slightly more advanced tool.

I can and have produced gun-powder in my backyard, with the slight cheat that my saltpetre was not extracted from a dung-heap and my sulphur was lab grade. Even then it was low quality. Again, it would be a slow task to bring the infrastructure up to task. The same goes for a lot of chemistry related issues. I want pure, high quality reagents. If there isn’t infrastructure to do that, I’m going to have to invent that infrastructure as well.

I want guncotton? OK, I need nitric acid. I can do that, but I need to be able to measure weights and temperatures with precision. Time to invent a thermometer and a scale. I can make do with a simple equal arm balance, but I’ll want an accurate set of reference standards, and if I want to spread the technology, I’ll need to produce and validate my standard weights. I’ll need to measure density very accurately for that, I can use water displacement and an accurately graduated glass cylinder. And a good calliper set. On the subject of callipers, if I can somehow make a good leg calliper I can reference my measurements against a standard, then try to make a Vernier calliper that’s accurate enough to be useful, assuming my available metal working tools were up to the task.
Ok, still gotta make a thermometer. Need high quality, uniform glass. I’m buggered there.

I suppose I could finance myself making artificial dyes (people paid good money for those) and entertaining the locals with simple fireworks. Hopefully I won’t be incinerated for practicing witchcraft. Then maybe use that wealth to trial-and-error myself through the infrastructure to go from bronze cannons, then figure out iron casting to make iron cannons, then work up to rifled guns and breach loaders. I know roughly how to do the latter, but would still have to rely on trial and error for the details.

[Simon_Jester]

Take a cue from Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp, and start by making a still and selling distilled spirits. You'll make money hand over fist once it catches on, and it'll fund your other stuff.

[Spectre_nz]

Ahh yes, I'd remembered that as I began my post, forgot it by the end...

All I'd need is someone to hammer out sheets of copper and a little bit of pottery and I could get a passable alembic.

Distilation is an easy first step and a great enabler of other chemical purifications.

With a water wheel, some kind of suction device and a well sealed still I could try fractionating other useful solvents out of pitch.

[Spectre_nz]

You know, actually... if I opted for a significantly less noble set of goals;

Combine basic chemistry and solvent extraction with a modern botanical knowledge, send trade missions to acquire tobacco, coca and opium poppies, I could pretty much corner the market in substance abuse. That'd also solve the problem of how to motivate the locals...

[Ahriman238]

See, chemistry, with a few very basic exceptions I couldn't do. Simple mechanical things, yes. Assembly-line production, Spinning Jenny, etc. If I met one of the old Chinese EMperors I could tell him that eating mercury isn't going to help him live forever, sort of the opposite. That's about it.

I'm not even sure how to drill for or refine oil, something that'd be needed for a number of things. Well, drilling may not be such a problem, as late as the Middle Ages Farmers considered oil an annoyance that sometimes bubbled up from the ground and ruined some of their crop.

I know crop rotation was one of the great advances in agriculture (besides modern fertilizers and pesticides) but beyond a vague familiarity with the principle, I have no idea what crops you'd want to swap out for each other.

[The Yosemite Bear]

who needs Edison, Tesla built electricity properly....

[Simon_Jester]

Tesla's version of electricity was significantly harder to build. Polyphase alternators are a whole 'nother level of complexity above Edison's DC power plants.

[phred]

Basic aviation would be no problem. Hang gliders and hot air balloons would be fairly easy. Get movable type going, and I can really put wherever I get sent to on the map. If they have good enough copper supplies I could probably work out rudimentary electricity eventually. I could probably help forging along with some minor nudges in the right direction, but i dont know enough to get more modern equipment going.

I think the one thing that would really set me back is that I suck a languages.

[Guardsman Bass]

There's little I can do in terms of chemistry or complicated engineering just off of memory. My contribution would be mostly limited to things like sanitation and the aforementioned crop rotation. I could relay the concept of a movable type press and wind power, but no design details (which means I'd likely get ignored).

I'm very dubious about some of the claims in-thread of being able to make a working steam engine. It historically took the technology to cast pistons and other mechanical parts to make steam power efficient enough to be used outside of pumping water out of mines, and you're not going to have that type of metallurgy available in 50 AD. You would have to completely supply both the knowledge of making those parts, plus the knowledge of making the tools to make the parts - and that still doesn't touch on the potential availability and cost of the raw materials.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Basic biological theory would be very effective if I can get enough followers to show the effectiveness of the results.
(Basic sterilization, germ theory, etc'). Not sure how hard it would be to get glass and to focus it to help there though, not to mention requiring tools to prove/reproduce/use many other elements.

People are also forgetting the issue of communications/logistics - even if you happen to speak ancient Greek or whatever, that doesn't mean you'll have a merchant with readily available saltpepper or a forge with a half ton of spare metals within a half hundred miles.

[Zor]

Things I know i could make/instruct people to make...

-Stills: selling samogon for funds, already covered.
-Blast Furnace: this would take some time and a fair bit of resources to build and feed it, if I get enough capital i could lay the plans down for one.
-Bessemer Process: Small scale might be possible once a blast furnace is up. If that once that is working, steel is going to get cheaper.
-Crossbows: need to go really far back though for those to be useful
-Basic Firearms: Arquebuses and so forth could be done if i can get the barrels cast
-Cottin Gin: Easy enough, but useful in only a few areas.

Zor

[The Grim Squeaker]

Things I know i could make/instruct people to make...

-Crossbows: need to go really far back though for those to be useful
-Basic Firearms: Arquebuses and so forth could be done if i can get the barrels cast

Zor

Basic firearms were much worse than crossbows and longbows for a reason. (Even cannons weren't useful for more than fireworks until they got the borring down to a fine art. There's a reason why some of the early kings who took advantage of cannons as siege weapons also happened to be killed by exploding cannons). Borrng isn't that easy!
Smokeless powder would be easy to do though. (It's easy to make if you have the ingredients for gunpowder, has better stability and range, and is smokeless!).

[khursed]

The main issue a lot of you skipped, is that you do not speak a single word in common with those people.

And as intelligent and informed as you are, you have no clue as to their custom and every day live.

That alone would be a huge obstacle to getting anything done, let alone find the right stuff to re-create the modern world.

honestly, unless I'm given an encyclopedia, a lot of basic tools, and a good translating device, I'm not even willing to contemplate attempting that kind of adventure.

The language barrier is a huge one, another one would be to simply survive on a 21 century metabolism in an age where the vast majority of kids didn't make it to their 18th birthday.

The food and water of that era took some hardy constitution and years of getting used to it, so we'd probably be in for some horrible infection and tourista to say the least.

Not to mention being stuck in a part of the world completely foreign to us, with no gps and no maps.

[Ahriman238]

The main issue a lot of you skipped, is that you do not speak a single word in common with those people.

And as intelligent and informed as you are, you have no clue as to their custom and every day live.

That alone would be a huge obstacle to getting anything done, let alone find the right stuff to re-create the modern world.

honestly, unless I'm given an encyclopedia, a lot of basic tools, and a good translating device, I'm not even willing to contemplate attempting that kind of adventure.

The language barrier is a huge one, another one would be to simply survive on a 21 century metabolism in an age where the vast majority of kids didn't make it to their 18th birthday.

The food and water of that era took some hardy constitution and years of getting used to it, so we'd probably be in for some horrible infection and tourista to say the least.

Not to mention being stuck in a part of the world completely foreign to us, with no gps and no maps.

I protest, my Latin skills should be at least on the level of a very small child or simpleton. The terrain is not completly unknown, and this is one of the more cosmopolitan cities in the world at a time when things were still going pretty well for them. So dealing with the language barrier is hardly the obstacle you'd think when people constantly stream into the city more than a few speaking less Latin than most English-speakers. Ditto for the customs and cultural minutiae.

The food and water is problematic, but a bit besides the point. At this time, no one is burning people at the stake for coming up with a new sort of fireplace.

Bessemer process, that's where you alooy a few metals with iron in a furnace to make steel right? Which metals specifically?

To expand on something I said earlier, if you can wrap copper wire around an iron stick, hold the assemply beneath a magnet and make it spin you have a basic electric generator. I can certainly get that far, and make a few mechanical refinements (big gear turning little gear) to wring a bit more effciency out of it. However, the ancient Greeks and Romans were already well-aware of electricity (the word came from elektron, Greek for amber because if you rub amber with wool you get static electricity) What I probably cannot do is convince Romans that creating electricity is worthwhile, desirable, or more than a party trick.

I know that a lightbulb is a glass vessel full of gas, with a wire running through. When electricity is channeled into the wire, it becomes converted into heat and light. So I have the vague concept of a lightbulb, but that gets me no cloaser to a lightbulb than Edision's starting point. Well, I know his ultimate success was called a cotton-filament lightbulb and presumably involved cotton in some way, but that's it. And there shouldn't be cotton in this part of the world at this time anyway.

[Dass.Kapital]

I know that a light-bulb is a glass vessel full of gas, with a wire running through. When electricity is channeled into the wire, it becomes converted into heat and light. So I have the vague concept of a light-bulb, but that gets me no closer to a light-bulb than Edison's starting point. Well, I know his ultimate success was called a cotton-filament light-bulb and presumably involved cotton in some way, but that's it. And there shouldn't be cotton in this part of the world at this time anyway.

I seem to remember a version of Edison's light bulb using some sort of 'Carbonized Bamboo' as its filament inside the bulb. No real idea how that would be done, nor any idea if there was a vacuum inside the bulb instead of some other, possibly/probably inert, gas.

Also I seem to recall it giving of a more amber light than 'white', since the filament did not reach the temperatures of more modern bulbs.

Just some thoughts.

[darkron]

Language would be my largest hurdle, followed by not being cast as a wandering idiot, speaking of "flying machines" and "bugs so small that you can't see them" and such.. They knew of primitive sterilization, so talking to the right guys would help there.
My initial contribution would be rails. They wouldn't be developed for another 1200 years and they could, initially, be made out of wood. Then later wood with metal caps. The slave labor would make an excellent workforce in constructing the railway. Hand pushed carts would move much faster along the rails. Rome would find that it could move goods and troops faster as well. Duel lines would allow for opposing traffic along the same route. And the technology would be easily understood by people of the time.

[Thanas]

I protest, my Latin skills should be at least on the level of a very small child or simpleton.

Alright then, translate the following into Latin:

In a blast furnace, fuel, ore, and flux (limestone) are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while air (sometimes with oxygen enrichment) is blown into the bottom of the chamber, so that the chemical reactions take place throughout the furnace as the material moves downward. The end products are usually molten metal and slag phases tapped from the bottom, and flue gases exiting from the top of the furnace. The downward flow of the ore and flux in contact with an upflow of hot, carbon monoxide-rich combustion gases is a countercurrent exchange process.

[Simon_Jester]

To be fair, I doubt a Roman simpleton or very small child would be able to explain that either.

[Thanas]

No, but you would have to be able to explain all of this to the Emperor's court to even get anywhere but the slave pits.

[Zor]

No, but you would have to be able to explain all of this to the Emperor's court to even get anywhere but the slave pits.

Best not to start with the Emperor them, start by setting up a still flogging rotgut. There is a million people in Rome, plenty of faces to get lost in as you build up capital and master the language.

Zor

[Thanas]

No, but you would have to be able to explain all of this to the Emperor's court to even get anywhere but the slave pits.

Best not to start with the Emperor them, start by setting up a still flogging rotgut. There is a million people in Rome, plenty of faces to get lost in as you build up capital and master the language.

Zor

Why do people think that the Romans had no strong spirits? They had fortified wine. The idea of "getting rich on rotgout" is not a guaranteed winner, especially considering the Roman cuisine might not care for one.

[Ahriman238]

I protest, my Latin skills should be at least on the level of a very small child or simpleton.

Alright then, translate the following into Latin:

In a blast furnace, fuel, ore, and flux (limestone) are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while air (sometimes with oxygen enrichment) is blown into the bottom of the chamber, so that the chemical reactions take place throughout the furnace as the material moves downward. The end products are usually molten metal and slag phases tapped from the bottom, and flue gases exiting from the top of the furnace. The downward flow of the ore and flux in contact with an upflow of hot, carbon monoxide-rich combustion gases is a countercurrent exchange process.

Touche. Without further instruction or immersion I could manage a Latin version of "Bring me materials X,Y, and Z (though depending on the materials in question I may not be able to that) I make you very rich. Trust me." Which is probably not the best sales pitch ever devised. With the simplest machines I could simply show them how they work.

I seem to recall the treadmill crane as being a middle ages invention, though the Romans could easily have it or something much like it, I simply do not know. I could certainly introduce stirrups 300 years early, and a chest collar for horses.

[Cykeisme]

They didn't have stirrups then?
Perhaps we could make a list of simple things like these that we would be able to "invent" to make ourselves useful, in the event that some random sd.net board members get blasted back a millenium or two?

[Thanas]

Treadmill crane wasn't that much of a problem to the romans - they didn't have it but they were very good with leverage so that should not matter to them much.

Stirrups might help, but the problem is that they are only good with great horses. And great horses only started to come into existence with the introduction of Arabic and hunnic breeds into the empire and a further 200 years of husbandry. So good luck with that.

(You could try stirrups with their usual horses, but problem is heavy cavalry only attacks in trot due to the weight of the heavy armor and medium cavalry already had straps to secure themselves. In any case, it is not a get rich quick method at all.)_