[OT] [I mean totally OT] Re: What can you "new"

Rioshin an'Harthen rharth75 at hotmail.com
Sun Mar 29 16:11:15 PDT 2009


Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

> Speaking of which (damn ranting and subject changing!) I think the 
> Medieval Ages were a stain on our history. I read somewhere how at the 
> beginning of that dark time there was actual *loss* of technology: they 
> had these aquaducts and pumps and mechanisms and whatnot from the Romans 
> and didn't know how to repair them anymore, so they just let them go 
> decrepit. Very scary.

I seem to remember reading from science mags that the ancient Greeks were 
close to building, if they hadn't already succeeded to, mechanical 
calculators. I also remember reading about some kind of batteries, but can't 
remember which ancient civilization it was that had discovered them. 
Scientists are only now managing to piece out pre-Dark Ages technology and 
how advanced it really was.

Now, if only the ancient times had continued to develop scientifically... 
who knows where we'd be now? It's not hard to imagine the computer being 
invented around 500 AD or so, if the current theories of ancient times hold 
up.

For some reason, the scientific development seems to have halted and even 
taken steps back in areas christianity spread to in ancient times, and only 
in the last about half a millenia has technological progress resumed. 




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