Jed wrote: Mike Carrell wrote: > > >Most of Edison's inventions could have been built anytime in the Iron Age > >by someone "who knew what to do". > > I think that is somewhat exaggerated.
Sure, it's a bit of hyperbole, to stir discussion. I read a piece on the Internet about the Antikytheria mechanism, which traced its probable origin to Rhodes, which at the time was a center of advanced military technology. There is much to be learned about how invention fluroishes here but not there. Batteries have been dated to ca. 200 BC, but no envidence that anyone brought a current carrying wire near a compass until the 1700s. Why should they? What other potential discoveries have been overlooked? There are ancient Egyptian artifacts that very stongly suggest they were made with machines such as lathes. Exquisite metalwork is seen in tomb artifacts, so it is dangerous to assert that an Edison foil pnonograph could not have been built. Glassblowing was known, It may have been possible to make an incandescent lamp. Electrostatic phenomena would have been seen in arid Egypt; there are wall carvings suggesting high voltage lamps. Lots of dots to connect. Mike Carrell ---------------------- Edison's improved stock market ticker > and his phonograph required precision parts and advanced metallurgy that > were not available in Europe before ~1400. They could have been made by the > ancient Greeks, however, as shown by the Antikythera computing device. The > Antikythera level of precision manufacturing was not rediscovered in Europe > until roughly 1700 according to what I have read. I expect moveable type > printing (1450) was the first high-precision European invention good enough > to allow Edison's research. > > The Chinese or Japanese might have made the Antikythera computing device or > Harrison's chronometers around 1500 or 1600, judging by their printing, > miniature sculptures such as netsuke, and precision gunmaking. > > I do not know about other ancient civilizations. > > Of course it is difficult to imagine what sort of substitutions or other > techniques might have been used to overcome problems with precision or > metallurgy. Any technology can be improved -- even stone age tools. Jared > Diamond made an interesting comment about this in "Guns Germs and Steel." > He pointed out that the remaining primitive tribes who still use stone > tools (or what might be called "modern Stone Age families") use materials > and techniques far advanced over ice-age stone tools. > > - Jed > > > > >
