5 Ancient Inventions That Were WAY Ahead Of Their Time | Answers With Joe
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- Опубликовано: 22 май 2024
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From napalm flamethrowers to an analog computer, the ancient world was far more clever and technologically advanced than we think it was. Here are 5 ancient inventions that were way ahead of their time.
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LINKS LINKS LINKS:
More on the Greek Fire:
• Greek fire - The Byzan...
All about the Antikythera mechanism:
• The Antikythera Mechan...
How to build a Hero's Engine:
• An Easy Hero's Engine
allthatsinteresting.com/greek-...
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Hero of Alexandria built a steam engine 2,000 years before the industrial revolution.
The Byzantines in Constantinople developed a napalm flamethrower they called Greek Fire.
Muslim armies in the crusades fought with a steel alloy that wouldn't be reproduced for 1000 years called Damascus Steel.
A clay pot called the Baghdad Battery discovered in modern day Iraq could possibly have been a galvanic cell electric battery.
And the famed Antikythera Mechanism was an analog computer featuring technology that wouldn't be seen again for 1500 years. 
Развлечения
This just made me realize that somewhere out there exists a contemporary innovation that could very well be thousands of years ahead of its time and we don't even know it yet
Bruh. Now this statement got me excited and sad at the same time
Go watch "The Hacksmith"
I keep telling people that my self-buttering toast will open up the gateway to the stars, but no one listens.
@@KaeYoss Please explain. TIA.
There actually is some pretty cool shit right here on RUclips of people inventing prototypes of technology that may be well known and much more enhanced hundreds of years from now.
Imagine this: the Baghdad Battery is a prank. Your friend tris to open it, gets "stung".
"Hey paul grab me a fig out of that jar"
Somehow this use seems the most likely to me knowing what people are like ... What does that say about humans? 🤔🤔
@@jimthesalad we're hilarious?
Most likely what it was used for
Earliest hand buzzer?
The worst thing about the Antikythera mechanism falling in the sea is that computer warranties don't cover water damage.
I think that maybe it fell off a boat passing over where it was eventually found, and it fell on an much older wrecked boat.
No way it's that far ahead of the rest of the world.
That's funny you mentioned that. A woman called me last week offering insurance on one. She promised a good rate so as soon as I get ahold of my own I'm going to call her back.😅😅
The fire at Alexandria has always fascinated me. How much knowledge was lost? What technology was lost that hasn’t been rediscovered yet? Intriguing to say the least.
I was also thinking about the Alexandra fire during this video too. It's the gnawing mystery that we'll never know how much that set humanity back.
Not even technology but potentially whole disciplines of thought like branches of science or philosophy that we just don’t have
Wasn't much of the stuff in the Library already copied and had many versions made? It's unlikely we lost much.
@@OfficialBlackstoneProductions No that's not true. A lot was saved through copies but we still lost massive amounts of documented history and science.
Origins of the pyramids for sure.
I still say the Baghdad battery is from a time traveler who got stuck in that time, and only needed 1 volt of electricity to make it home, and they MacGyver'd that battery and made it home safe.
Mr Time-Traveller would have done way better with a kite in a thunderstorm.
Well this may roast his device! ;)
Oh of course. You only need 1 volt but why settle for that when you could have a billion, I mean what could go wrong?
Captain Stone ......that can make a great plot for a movie
1.21gigawatts
*”WE HAVE MASTERED WIND”*
...mills
@M Detlef Golden Wind
Sad avatar noises
you should check this out ruclips.net/video/dQw4w9WgXcQ/видео.html
IronSlab memorized the link HAHA
btw wobba wobba
Progress isn’t linear or uniform. Progress is also relative to where you are. Ancient Egyptians had mastered boat building and naval travel before the wheel was widely used for transport. Which sounds ridiculous but, if you’ve tried to roll a cooler at the beach you know, wheels aren’t that useful when most of the ground is sand.
The Inca also built a complex and advanced civilizations without the wheel. They understood the concept and made toys with wheels, but in the steep and rugged mountains where they lived wheels were just not very useful.
Everyone got boats before wheels. Boats are technologically easy. A floating bit of wood works as a boat. From there it’s not a huge leap to refine it to a boat. A working wheel and axle is a precise machine.
My mother had a mechanical calculator, she called it an “adding machine”- it was really amazing. Could do all the stuff a basic calculator did but needed no batteries and made fun clicking sounds
@@40watt53 she bought it, I don’t know who made it
Yeah I learned about those on pawn stars 😂
Wait ... the ones with the big wooden beads on steel bars?
@@francookie9353 no, not an abacus 🧮
It was something like the “mechanical calculators” covered in this video:
ruclips.net/video/7jBfXtgdCUQ/видео.html
@Gernot Schrader no, that one is very cool though. Amazing to perform such advanced math with a mechanism . I think it was a Commodore CBM 208 or another brand’s model that looked very similar. Later when we got a computer we got a Commodore so might have been due to brand loyalty. I asked a few other family members and no one seems to have any detailed memory of that device except that we had one… it’s like we all have a greasy thumbprint obscuring that part of our memories…
The Antikythera mechanism just blows my mind, I’ve seen it at the museum in Athens a bunch of times and it’s just unfathomable that it existed back then and we didn’t advance further from that kind of technology!
But we did. With each recycling of the earth, we get fancier toys. Like your iPhone. Who knows what they will develop the next go around.
I am going to Europe this summer, and the museum in Athens is one of the places I'm going to see
@@clouddd8053 that would be awesome to see that in person.
It was most likely built by a Greek artisan, who was one of only a few capable of making it, they passed on the knowledge in secret to an apprentice, but to no-one else, and the time and skill in making it meant very few were ever built ... it was an expensive novelty at the time and so the knowledge faded (there is some evidence the Persians had similar devices later)
There is a video of a man using tools available at the time, fascinating
That’s why I get so annoyed when someone talks about people from the past as if they were less intelligent than us. Dude they built stuff that we still can’t figure out today how they did it, like the pyramids and that fountain in Alhambra. I think modern people have a very arrogant approach to the past, present and future in general, and arrogance is never a good thing.
@Bob Desombre Your capslock is stuck.
Well... some people were a little dumber. Things weren't invented yet. Nikolai tesla was pretty awesome though.
Bob Desombre sorry to burst your bubble but the invention of rockets wasn’t that huge of a invention. It was plain and simple endurance that led to the development of them.
Germans are well know for their work ethics and even if some people would say that’s a cliche it’s still true. They just never gave up. They tested and tested just think about the time von Braun was a Nazi scientists he had all the fundings he could dream of. It was inevitable that they would invent something crazy.
I mean...yeah people were just as smart back then as they are today...but then I look at the absolute dunderheads that are around _today..._
We made the largest buildings in the world we have computers we can send the man on the moon or orbit our planet
So yes the past was stupid I bet most of these inventions where just made out of luck and they where just too dumb to imagine the real use for these stuff
joe saying "love you guys take care" at the end of videos makes me feel what i i think it's like to have a good dad
The Damascus Steel ore has been found to have a small percentage of Vanadium, a steel hardening/toughening alloy for modern steels, so it was a superior iron ore from the get-go. Since back then nobody had ever heard of Vanadium, the steels using this alloy were probably seen to be magical in some way.
For an invention to succeed it needs three things, the inventor, the materials to make it and a social need.
A lack of any one of these condems it to curiosity value.
Exactly, and also some inventions needs applicability that is only guaranteed because of another inventions or a huge demand.
Yeah exactly. Some old inventions were just ahead of their time. Technology wasn't there or the social need wasn't there. We also experience this all the time in the modern days. Some inventions are just ahead of their time.
It has to be an invention at the right place, at the right time, with the right person backing it
I think that's why war tends to be at the forefront of most technologies, it usually invokes all three of those things - then the technologies filter themselves out into normal society a little while later
It will always need the inventor. Without the inventor to identify the the need and materials to produce the product, materials and social need don't matter.
"witnesses say it caught the air on fire" 5:35
Isnt that how fire works...
Given that they were in the Mediterranean, they're in a sub-tropical climate; this is a very humid area (I'm in a sub-tropical area of the US), and if the fire can stay lit on water, then, so long as the environment is humid, the air begins to catch fire.
Northern climates have much less humidity, so, fires can only burn one way; but given enough humidity with Greek fire, then it's plausible that fires could simply spread out and just burn up more of the area than a typical fire can.
Why are you talking about fireworks?
RyuuTenno speculating on ideas does not make them factual! You start off by calling southern Europe subtropical, when in fact it’s in the temperate zone. Just because you live in an area that you call subtropical that approximates the latitudes of the Mediterranean doesn’t mean that the entire planet follows that climate profile. Had you traveled to any part of southern Europe you would not be saying this and since you haven’t just a little bit of research would have prevented you from making a fool of yourself by calling southern Europe subtropical. It’s practically a desert.
um... no. That's NOT the way fire works. Actually, nobody really knows EXACTLY how fire works (one of those pesky little Mysteries of Science like the Three Body Problem and how does water do all the cool stuff it does, and why does a bicycle stay upright when you get off it and just give it a good push, and why can't we figure out the Hubble Constant via independent methods..... ). That said, fire basically works like this: a combustable material like wood, paper or Greek Fire is heated to a certain temperature, like say Farenheight 451 for books, at which temperature it becomes much more easy to oxidize - combine with oxygen in the air. Since it is hot, it oxidizes quickly (most materials are oxidizing slowly all the time - rust, paper turning yellow with age, etc.), and starts a chain reaction: one molecule oxidizes very quickly, which releases heat which brings surrounding molecules up to the temperature where they also oxidize really fast as well - voila: FIRE!!
@@altareggo Incorrect, fire is oxidation same as rusting except faster. Take physics and chemistry courses. Metaphysical articles are bullshit.
@4:15 "need 2 x 1.1V batteries to run a digital watch" I would expect an LCD watch to run on as little as 0.8V. Also the voltage is a result of the chemistry, ie. what the dissimilar metals are. A 12V car battery is in fact 6 x ~2.2V (lead/lead dioxide) cells in series and a 9V battery is actually 6 x 1.5V (carbon/zinc). Far more important would be the current it could provide. A watch can be run off a copper and a steel nail stuck into a lemon.
Some dude somewhere is accidentally making a dimension hopping device and later someone’s going to find it and wander why we didn’t start the quantum revolution
I think concrete needs an honorable mention , because the romans used it back then, but it was Lost after the Roman empire fell , an was only reinvented much later, and some say the Roman concrete was far superior to the kind we use now.
totally agree
I dont know about far superior, but they did have concrete that could solidify under water. We didn't have that until a lot more recently
Hah. Almost typed this but scrolled down.
+Paul Leimer Roman concrete has lasted for thousands of years. There are still loads of Roman structures left standing, even after hundreds of earthquakes, floods, wars, etc. After the Empire fell, most of them weren't maintained by anyone. Modern concrete bridges start decaying after 20 years of neglect.
+Paul Leimer +demoniack81
Indeed, the underwater structures at Caesarea remain untouched by erosion. Our concrete, or at least what we had back then breaks down after fifty years in such conditions. It's safe to say theirs was superior if you get the mix right. In fact tests have been done that show the strength is comparable to our concrete. And rather than deteriorate, it actually gets stronger over time. Amusingly, the Hoover dam appaz was made with a similar kind of concrete to the Roman, and as we know, it still stands.
The fire of the Alexandrian Library destroyed so much knowledge and wisdom.
thank you Romans
Deeeeep.
Didn't really
The fire caused by Caesar only slightly damaged it.
Vivek Acharya I mean 40,000 scrolls were lost but really it was Ptolemy VIII’s fault. The disinterest he gave to the library was the beginning of its downfall
"Why didn't those dots connect in the ancient world?"
What happened was that we invented the printing press. Progress doesn't happen without wide collaboration and exchange of views.
Accumulation/storage and dissemination of knowledge. Critical.
The printing press is over 1000 years old. The spread of information had a lot more to do with naval technology and automation than the act of printing itself.
🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤
@@mariusvanc 🤤🤤🥺😩😩😩😩🥵🥶🤤🤤🤤🤤😑💔
@@abebuckingham8198 no, Gutenberg press is 1450 right around the time enlightenment became a thing.
And do you understand how great leap it was, well basic mechanism of press was not changed for 600 years till computer printing became a thing. The alloy used, ink used and the removable type set printing were all invented in one go.
That's like someone invented computer, internet and electricity at the same time.
I believe that the reason we didn't become technologically advanced in the past was because their weren't enough interacting minds to communicate with each other. Humans finally reached such numbers, and could also communicate with each other, that technical advancement became possible.
"Come up with new and innovative ways to kill people with science"
"It was like glue from hell"
- Joe 2018
I remember watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos series, a long time ago, and in one episode he talked about the clash that happened between proponents of pure thought as a way to gain knowledge versus the proponents of experimentation. In the end, it was pure thought that won and for centuries influenced how science was done. If experimentation had won, Sagan thought we might have had space flight quite a few centuries before we actually did. But, obviously, that is pure speculation. We'll never know for sure what would have happened. Maybe we would have ended up blowing ourselves up with nuclear weapons, had we discovered nuclear power 500 years ago.
Yup, Charles Martel, that's my contention too!
I think thought and experimentation support each other.
Thought is relating givens(information) to each other, identifying patters, in those givens and identifying “what here is not the same”.
Experiments are about gathering information and using results as proof to support the notion.
Anyone actually thinking would have to agree with you gentlemen. And the idea of something called
" pure thought" -- whatever is that?
@@averyjoycelynbarakudablock4139from context I think he meant "pure" as in "nothing but" aka philosophy
Literally the bombing could happen now , education is the only thing that is holding us from blowing each other up. Education is the only way that makes us see through hate.
You always have interesting videos. I am glad someone puts up videos without clickbait or garbage. Keep it up your doing great.
As an electrical engineer, I spent hours thinking about what might be the purpose of this jar/battery and got to this theory, maybe it was used in revolutionary way to produce chlorine in another drinkable water jar by electrolysis to make it safe to drink.
Nice pfp
They might just be storage jars used to store important documents.
If they were batteries, there would also be some wires.
There have never been any wires.
Also, it's really tiny, so I'm not sure how much chlorine they could produce.
damascus steel = valerian steel
Greek Fire= Wild Fire
Go figure.. books imitating reality 🤔
That t-shirt tho
Greek Life was so wacky back in the day....now it's just a silly excuse to get drunk
All provided by Wild Magic!
Royal incest = royal incest
6:32 dragons blood like the myth or the incense ? there’s a incense that’s called dragons blood that can be made into a very strong oil form.
It seems like that would make more sense, as steel can be hardened by quenching in oil.
or ascend to godhood
Or blood of some kind of lizzard so it gets more carbon
Seriously? How pray tell would they quench a sword thousands of years ago in a potpourri scent created in modern times? Maybe they quenched the blade in Redbull.
@@codename495 Dragon's Blood has been known for a long time and was written about in medieval encyclopedias.
"The dragon's blood known to the ancient Romans was mostly collected from D. cinnabari, and is mentioned in the 1st century Periplus (30: 10. 17) as one of the products of Socotra. Socotra had been an important trading centre since at least the time of the Ptolemies. Dragon's blood was used as a dye, painting pigment, and medicine (respiratory and gastrointestinal problems) in the Mediterranean basin, and was held by early Greeks, Romans, and Arabs to have medicinal properties. Dioscorides and other early Greek writers described its medicinal uses."
Or they were so advanced that all they needed was 1.1 volts to power their entire city.
BECAUSE ALIENS!
Or had something "greener" and more efficient at generating power, then electricity🤷🏼♂️
_Wwwoooaaa ... !!!_ (in my _best_ Keanu Reeves voice ;=)) ! )
"WHOA!" -- Keanu Reeves!
"WOW WOW WEE WAH!" -- Borat!
Voltage wouldn't be an accurate measurement of power in this case unless you include wattage - Voltage isn't indicative of power by itself, if you compared electricity to water flowing through pipes then Voltage would be considered the waters "pressure" or how much force that water is being pushed through the pipes, it doesn't actually tell you how much water (power) is flowing through said pipes.
There was a program on PBS years ago called Connections with James Burke produced by the BBC, I believe. He traced how one invention led to another and how one invention combined with another invention could produce a whole new invention. Very interesting show.
"How do progress and technology come to a screeching halt?".......POLITICS!
reece flynt Greed.
Baby Boomer Capitalistic Greed. Also adds to the mix.
@@riverdeep399 No, that is what makes them happen, mostly.
When a man in a funny hat who can talk to his special friend tells you to burn all your books and scientific achievements because an evil entity was at play in their creation you set your progress back. Or you just loose them.
@@SykeMed Yes. It's ridiculous how people waste millenia of cientific progress and keep sticking to that crap.
@@GabrielCarvv so did Albert Einstein waste his time believing in God.
"Witnesses said that it actually set air on fire"
I imagine being from a time when flammable liquids hadn't been invented yet, this is the impression you'd get when seeing a jet of fire flying on your ship
I visited the Roman ruins of Tridentum in Trento, Italy and was shocked to learn they had heated flooring! It absolutely blew my mind that heated flooring isn't a modern idea.
Fascinating, especially the astronomical computer! Makes you wonder how much of our current technology may become lost in the future.
''Greek fire'' is called '' υγρό πυρ'' in Greek which literately means liquid fire
Parthenis Deslis, thank you.
Parthenis Deslis soooo.........water fire?
Parthenis Deslis +
Mwmen Shaker Liquid doesnt mean "water"
napalm before napalm
Couldn’t the battery be used for sparks to start a fire
Oh shit, the time travel association has contacted me and they wanna know your location rn 💀
No. It simply did not have the amperage. You could not even light a simple low voltage bulb with this. Try getting a spark out of a nearly dead AA cell (which arguably would still have more power in it than this superposed battery would have).
Why.... ? Flint and iron had been around for thousands of years, literally. Candles....etc....
I'm pretty sure 4 D batteries linked in a series can ignite tree moss if touched on either end. Even batteries with a small voltage like commonly used AA and AAA alkaline batteries can start a fire under the right conditions. ... This can happen easily if a penny touches the uncovered end of a 9V battery, or if a paper clip or other common metal object comes in contact with more than one AA batter.
The second part was on Google.
Sorry, I just reread you original post. Modern batteries yes, Baghdad battery no.
Drip HD --- probably used to test if jewelry was fake
6:45 The Wilhelm scream!
Used in hundreds of movies, including many you have most probably seen (and a current Twix commercial).
Love your posts, particularly this one as you pointed out where would we be if such early technology had kept on progressing to our day?
Thank you Joe for uploading a new video and making my Monday bearable.
always happy to see new videos from Joe. hope you have a great rest of your monday!
its the only thing I look forward to on a Monday
"Monday, Monday, can't trust that day...……….."
Clickspring on youtube is making a Antikythera Mechanism using period methods, super awesome build
Damascus steel is the most amazing in my eyes. Yeah it's strength was enhanced, but the product looked BEAUTIFUL. It may not have had an important role in modern industry, but it makes things look amazing.
I'm sure I read somewhere that horse hooves contain the same ingredient that is used in case hardening.
Your videos are the most informative I've come across on RUclips. Im constantly pausing them to look up a word you use that i have never heard of. Joe I was a teacher for a decade! Granted I was self taught and teaching science and history at an eight grade level but still!! I just learn so much watching your channel. Keep up the good work!
Marvelous work. Of all the inventions you mention, the Antikythera mechanism is one that stands out, doesn't it? It suggests high level understanding of gear-making, precision engineering, and a type of mathematics needed to program the gears to produce a specific output. Brilliant. Until this find, we had no idea that the Greeks could do anything like this. What else were they able to accomplish? What else was lost to the seas, volcanoes, earth quakes, and war?
probably a lot
They also had automatons and little self playing instruments and toys that would move around. Gears and pneumatics but worthless wonders compared to the work of a slave. Something so rare or a workhorse human you could find anywhere you conquered.
I've read of a lost book of Archimedes was recently x-rayed and they discovered some previously unknown mathematics. Beyond me to try and explain it, but these problems he solved were similar to those that were solved by mathematics developed in the 17th century. Not quite as spectacular as the mechanism but still interesting.
@Ray Wyman Jr
This youtuber has done a series of Antikythera videos that deserve to be watched
ruclips.net/video/eb9J5a5eaWs/видео.html
Hey Joe, great video as always.
You probably already know this, but the viewers might not: Did you know that "Byzantine" is actually an anachronistic title? The Eastern half of the Roman Empire was always the most populous & economically important part of the Empire (particularly thanks to the agriculture in Egypt), & they used Greek as their lingua franca rather than Latin, even before the West fell. After the fall of the West, the people of the Eastern Roman empire (that we now call Byzantine) continued to operate as they did before... And they continued to call themselves Roman, right up until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Historians eventually started calling them the Byzantine empire (after Constantinople' s original name, Byzantium) to more easily delineate between Rome before the fall of the West & Rome after the fall of the West.
Also, as just a fun aside, it's true that Church Latin pronounces "C" as an "S", but most of our evidence shows that in Latin as spoken by the Romans, "C" was pronounced like a "K", & "V" was pronounced like a "W". Gives a whole different feel to "Veni vedi vici," right?
So it's pronounced: "WENEE - WEDEE - WIKKEE" ? That's very interesting! Thank you.
Interesting fact "Byzantines" called themselves Roman until 1920s or so.
This guy is honestly cool af, just thinking abt where would we be had the enlightenment occurred year 100. Every time I watch this man videos my mind is definitely blown
"Oh god oh fuck it's a fucking flame wizard why does this shit burn in water"
"QUICK! GET THE DAY OLD PISS!"
Isn’t the big reason for our progress due to publication? I mean... all these things being created back then, when discussion was the main way to keep history.
The printing press, and publication... yes, the Internet...
they were published and circulated even back to 400bc at the university at alexandria egypt. people committed their lives to storing knowledge in a massive library, and rewriting old and decayed scrolls continuously. It was an arduous job according to Greece maintaining knowledge from Rome, Greece, Egypt, and east with Vedic and Babylonian as well which was sadly razed to the ground by fire. and most knowledge from Phoenicia was sadly lost.
Justin James yes... but not publicized... not spread to common people. Not advertised, and distributed to all people.
The razing of the Library of Alexandria is the single greatest crime against humanity. It set us back 1,000 years. Thanks Caesar.
Scribes also copied out the important books repeatedly (though not always accurately) so distribution was a thing. Of course doing it that way was horribly expensive and time consuming (and rarely available to the common people) but it was sufficient to transfer ideas around. The problem was that there was no basis for many of the ideas. The Greeks in particular not only didn't bother testing their theories -- they actually considered experimentation to be a mean form of gaining knowledge used by those who weren't bright enough to think their way through the world.
That worked fine for mathematics where most of it exists in an abstract space of pure imagination anyway, but it certainly did no favors for the so-called "natural" sciences. It turns out the universe is wholly unwilling to bow to whatever we think it should do. It does whatever the hell it wants and all we're able to do is try to describe it as best we can. I still love Neil deGrasse Tyson's phrasing: "The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you."
Ah yes, magazines like Popular Mechanics and the like likely did a lot to spread technological knowledge. The inventor might not always see all the uses of his device, but a prospective user might. So publication is extremely important.
Thanks for covering the Antikythera mechanism, I was always fascinated by it.
i saw a show years ago about the Antikythera mechanism. They figured out that it was used to track the movement of the moon, sun, stars, etc. However, it was based on the assumption that those celestrial bodies revolved around the Earth. So basically the Antikythera mechanism did work even though it was flawed in design.
Old comment but you should have a look at click springs channel, he is reproducing the Antikythera Mechanism in brass...really interesting
ruclips.net/p/PLZioPDnFPNsHnyxfygxA0to4RXv4_jDU2
Thanks for doing this program! It's a real blessing.
Do a video on the library of alexandria and discuss the possible knowledge we may have lost, and where we could be today if it had not burnt down
In good news, it didn't burn down and almost none of the information in it was original. So I guess the answer is that we'd be here, now.
RE: The Baghdad Battery.
As you said, I think this creation falls into a similar category as Heron's 'Steam Engine'. I have always assumed some intelligent person figured out how to make a very small electrical current, but as with Heron's wheel, viewed through the eyes of the average person of the time - it was probably highly unlikely they were able to see it's future uses. Essentially, a toy or charlatan's prop, but viewed through our 21st century eyes we can see how incredible close they were, so long ago, to radically altering history.
But great video Joe, all great subjects especially the Antikythera mechanism (one of my personal favourite quirks of history), and nice to have a channel talk about these subjects without the sensationalist overtones!
The Faceless Narrator [History Of The World] the same thing may be said about something like the Tesla coil in the future. Why didn't they see it's potential, they'll be saying.
even 1 volt can be used to electrically coat jewellery with thin layers of metal
I never said there was only one? I'm definitely open to the idea there was more than one, and perhaps even commonplace for something we are yet to discover. But until we find more, that is conjecture. The same way people 2'000 years ago can't view the world through 21st century eyes, us in the 21st century can't view the world from the eyes of someone around the 1st century.
But I do agree with you in the sense that a lot of things from this era will simply be damaged or destroyed by time and the chances of finding more intact 'batteries' is minimal. That, of course, doesn't mean more didn't exist, it just means 2'000 years + pottery = hard to maintain.
Also, Bryan Hensley, I 100% agree with you. I personally think (and this is just an opinion) that even though Tesla was mad, he was still the greatest mind to have lived - and if he says energy can be harnessed from the air, well I'm going to trust it's hypothetically possible and we're just too simple to figure it out. I think you're right, at some point in the future Tesla's coil is going to be the new Heron's Engine.
(And if we're going out-there on unprovable theories I have a bias towards - I personally don't think alchemy is all bullshit either, I mean, it is, but the concept of adding or subtracting a proton to change a base metal into another metal is factually sound... just requires 21st century tech, and isn't really worth the cost of production. So, not saying they did it, just saying I don't think the science behind it is all pseudo-science.)
considering what it was i highly doubt it was wide spread there were probably at most a 1000 of the things made
I agree with you.
12:00 "How did we lose these things?".
Answer: Wars
E.g. Baghdad battery is now lost forever probably.
real answer: RELIGION
@@davidtimmerman3121 yeah Christian relligion of Bush who accused Iraq having mass wapons when they did not have any.
@@joimy95 that's not because of Christian religion but American Stupidity
@@dingleberryhandpump9448 This. Americans have the collective IQ of a grapefruit
To all the people in this reply section, can we seriously stop generalising? It's incredibly disrespectful to the people who haven;t done anything wrong, and who can't control their leaders and the stupid things they do. The Crusades, even though they were a terrible thing, should not be blamed on the Christians, but on the Pope who manipulated them into doing what they did. There are many kind, open-minded Christians today, and there are many extremely intelligent and conscious Americans. No matter what you say, saying "All Americans are stupid" is bordering on discrimination similar to racism.
When I heard “computer” for the calendar, I wanted to see a sick 3 monitor Alienware gaming set up
Don't underestimate the importance of the invention of the book press.
“Don’t let the powers that be turned us against one another”!! Now that is great advice!
Lost and forgotten inventions are always so interesting. I remember seeing somewhere how stories from the past with magic may have been simply inventions ahead of its time. Like the genie in the magic lamp, looking at it with today’s eyes, rubbing the lamp maybe a button was pressed and a hologram appeared.
what are you talking about holograms couldnt in no way be made at that time
Nestoras Zogopoulos isn’t that the point of this video? These things were built way ahead of its time, and if not a hologram than a projector.
They have since found about a half dozen ancient Galvanic cells. They were probably used for TENS therapy (strange as it seems they also used electric fish for this. If you've seen Socrates described as a torpedo fish in translation, that is what Plato is talking about).
That delivery of "the Byzantines opened up a can of whoop ass" is brilliant, I laughed so much at that. Thank you, Joe
What made these technologies thrive between the 19th and 20th centuries, were the cultural exchanges between nations and even continents. Before, it was almost impossible to comunicate between countries at the rate we did in the 1800s.
Not only that, but there's also to keep into consideration the population numbers, that grew exponentially, forming bigger and more culturally active cities, giving more chances to an idea to take hold and be shared.
Colpo Rosso +
Sounds like you just finished reading The Rational Optimist. I finished 2 months ago. Fascinating book.
We also had big wars that forced countries to innovate in a wide range of sectors and governments to invest in such scientific studies.
@@BGfootballfan And now we are getting a Space Command again! YAy Science, even in the guise of military might.
@@Tyradius A lot of scientific discoveries have been made while searching for more effective ways of killing each other, sad but it still has brought a lot of good.
War and conquest seems to drive invention more than any other force.
by destroying the stores of knowledge from before
Fear of death and self preservation will lead to wacky ideas. Some actually work, and later non deadly uses can be found.
Jup we only have NASA because Wernher von Braun thought hey let’s invent a rocket that can go into space.
I just stumbled on Your site, Very Nice!! Love the rolling of the mind. Would We perhaps see another age of enlightenment leap from People like You having programs like this??
Can you imagine being so smart back then like 1000 years ago an being trapped in your time unable to do anything. Today we are so lucky to be able to act out our ideas
I'd like to see you talk about Charles Babbage's difference engine. If that had been built, we would have advanced much differently.
Jeff B pun intended ?
I understand that the British government spent a lot of money, trying to build the device but Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone made the mistake of cancelling the project. The British Treasury has always specialised in short sighted penny pinching policies.
@@gryphonpol Furthermore, i have heard that the toolmaker hired by Babbage to make the intricate parts of the machine just took a bunch of money and all his purpose-made tools, and disappeared, and that it was this event which ultimately led to the purse being drawn shut.
Was he related to Charles Cabbage, the guy who sold cabbages in Ba Sing Se?
"another way slavery blocked the progress of human race"
I love this quote.I love how you recognize the availability of cheap human labor is impeding automation and therefore, progress.
.......No parallels today at all. Nope. None at all.
Automation is actually a very big thing now, and cheap labor is turning into FREE labor because the only humans involved are the ones supervising the factories. The issue back then is that the engine still required slave labor to be useful, rendering its automation aspect useless. If someone tried to make it more efficient, there would be another story, but nobody did, sadly.
Can’t you argue that automaton is making it worse for people? I mean, it’s replacing millions of jobs that people relied on to make a living. I understand the issues with cheap labor and the laws around that in places like China and India, and yes, those countries should work towards fixing that. But if you don’t have a job to begin with because some stupid robot took it, doesn’t that put a lot of people in even worse situations. Should we really be relying this heavily on technology?
@@jess.i.can22 while that closes up unskilled job opportunities, it opens up just as many skilled job opportunities. Engineers and absolutely anyone else involved in automation are in high demand, which is why any tech field pays up to 100k if not more for only a few years of work experience.
Can't you argue that automation is making it better for people? I mean, it's replacing millions of monotonous jobs with ones that require some thought and care. It's almost like increasingly advanced civilization is forcing people to be smarter or work harder to find jobs. Wow, shocker.
Getalife Sure you could say that, but what about all the people who are simply not cut out for the schooling involved in that, be it because of money, culture, or that they simply find working in that field absolutely boring. Technology is great for the most part, but going to school and paying thousands upon thousands of dollars to just be able to get anywhere near it sucks. Not everyone wants to be an engineer or a doctor or some computer science major. The fact of the matter is that the more we advance from a technological aspect, the more limited jobs become, both in variety and availability. Places like Amazon pay great, with some people making wages of over 100k, and those people work day in and day out to maintain the company’s distribution facilities. Those people keep that company running, and they work hard doing it. You could say they overwork, and they are certainly not what you would call ‘unskilled workers.’ But when you consider the fact that Amazon only wants to increase its output, how long will it be before those people are replaced by automated machines that don’t need to be paid a living wage? Why should convenience and efficiency outweigh the value of those workers? And why does everyone need a degree or some fancy title to be viewed as someone who can positively contribute to society?
Not to mention, you could argue that engineers today are dumber than they’ve ever been because they’re relying on computers more than ever, much in the same way many doctors now use google to look up symptoms and find a diagnosis. We can make the argument that technology is making us all dumber, lazier, and rather uncreative. I’m not saying we should be done with technology, but I definitely believe there should be a point where we say enough is enough.
@@jess.i.can22 I never said degree, and that's the key thing. In the future, it might be possible to do some engineering jobs straight out of high school because yes, they rely on computers to do the work. But who told those computers what to do? Exactly, the engineers. If everyone comes out of high school with more knowledge than they currently do, we're progressing as a society, as the harder jobs are more accessible to the people who are interested in them while everything else except for factory jobs stay readily available as well. "Unskilled workers" simply refers to anyone who doesn't require any sort of specialized training in the form of schooling/certification. I'm an unskilled worker. I work at McDonalds and I tutor physics and calculus. These are jobs that will almost NEVER get replaced, and that's even with the hundreds upon thousands of free online resources to learn those subjects. Humans are needed in restaurants, and most people prefer a HUMAN helping them with their schoolwork. There will always be "unskilled" jobs available, although there might be less of them. My point throughout all of this is that a higher amount of "skilled" jobs would leave room for people who want to get into a field but can't. Couldn't you say that over generations, this would force us to evolve to be smarter? In this post-modern society we have here, us humans are the ones controlling our own future evolution. Why not use this power to make everyone even more intelligent?
Since the start of civilization, we HAVE been getting smarter, and there's no reason to stop it from continuing. You might argue that some ancient civilizations excelled in math and science, which is very correct, but it is nothing compared to what we know now, and philosophers/mathematicians were in very limited numbers. While middle schoolers are now learning a bit of Pythagoras's work, there was a long period of time where people didn't even hear about the Pythagorean theorem unless they got a college education. In a few hundred years, I predict that calculus will make its way down into middle school, as the kids will be much smarter than ever. Though it's not a perfect measure of intelligence, IQ tests change every year to keep the average at 100 because it keeps rising.
Also, you can't argue that everyone finds EVERY job in the STEM fields boring because just in engineering alone, there is an unimaginably large variety of fields, and jobs within those fields vary even more. Fields such as social work, management, research, and much more are never going away. Yes, they require schooling, but the amount of schooling may dwindle as we progress as a society. Or, it it could maybe stay the same due to competition. Maybe our future social workers have identical qualifications to present-day therapists without an increase in schooling.
06:45 - Nice use of the Wilhelm Scream.
Damascus steel had varied layers of different carbon content steel.
This could create a hard steel, that also was not brittle.
Notable: the crude methods they used, would have track marks in the metal.
Someone mentioned Honorable Mention, and to add to that list was Archimedes' flaming death ray - I think that is the one
I would think communication, access to information, dissemination of information (periodicals, books) and the printing press or lack thereof are why small inventions like these never took off.
I love this channel Joe ! One of the best on RUclips 4 sure !!!
Lol. I accidentally sped up the video.....I never noticed how much Joe teleports back and forth on screen
"Bloody slaves, comin over ere takin all arr jobs"!!!
res1492 they yeerr jebs?
Lol.
On the other hand, it’s an equal-opportunity career path...😈
@@queenannsrevenge100 that's only of it's a career choice. If not a choice, it's pretty much slavery. And who the fuck would choose slavery?
cocka doodle dooo
Watch the old "Connections" series by James Burke - Extensively explores the way "progress" works.
That is a great series.
Yes; but it's more profitable to peddle half-baked ideas on YT.
the subtitles wrote "Byzantines" as "bison teens" and I think that's neat.
love your work. your like the Discovery channel of youtube and I cant stop watching more...
Being a science fiction nerd this is where my mind went ...
-Won’t that confuse the archaeologists?
The Doctor- I’m a time traveler. I point and laugh at archaeologists.
🤣😂🤪 That will never get old
Please make more videos like this!
So all the great achievements came out of playing around. The importance of play is underrated.
"Don't let the Powers that be divide us!" Joe really is a prophet!
It is so strange to think that in a different timeline the ancient “advanced civilizations” that conspiracy theorists talk about could be a reality. Imagine if there were multiple points in human history where we advanced certain technologies to the point they are now. Of course it took nearly the whole planet to industrialize in our world, but ancient nations still could have specialized in batteries or steam power and created a golden age of technology in their respective time period.
there would be so much more archeological evidence of that tech if that were the case
Imagine if some humans( elites) knew that there was a cycle in the universe that basically reshaped the planet and used that knowledge to create a religion based on themselves and or ideals. The cycle continues......
That would be awesome. 🤘👽
@@napatora No there wouldn't. Evidence can erode with weather erosion. You leave a car outside for decades and it will rust and deteriorate. 100 years later it would decompose. 1k years later it would be as if there was no car.
So we're just going to ignore the constant of polygonal masonry and sacred geometry that we can't replicate? Let alone the appearance of the same handbag symbol that is found from the Mayan to the sumerian to the aboriginal cultures.... okay
Another fascinating & well-presented video :-)
That last one is insane man
My thoughts exactly Joe, most of our ingenious ideas and intelligence are wasted on war greed greed and selfishness, if we learn to cultivate knowledge in a meaningful way who knows where we would be today and hopefully the future is still bright stillBright so keep your shades, sunglasses close by…
Love your stuff! Keep it up.
If you didn't have me before, you got me at 'Nailed it.'.
You make learning fun, I listen to you on my phone and watch if I'm lucky . Thanx
As a modern day blacksmith and forger of "Damascus steel", I have to say, you're a bit off on the history and composition of pattern welded steel Joe. Cheers for the effort though man, glad to see work come up in the every day.
He is a little bit off, but he's not talking about pattern welding. People have used the term Damascus to refer to pattern welding for a couple hundred years now, but the wootz steel from India that originally had the name wasn't pattern welded at all. It was a crucible steel that formed microcarbide structures as it cooled. If forged carefully, these patterns would be preserved in the final piece and come out looking similar to pattern welding. It was really just an early high carbon steel, the qualities of which impressed the Europeans simply because their metallurgy wasn't at that level.
@@JimmyTownmouse thanks for the metallurgy history lesson guys. BTW, I love that show where guys make forged steel weapons, then other guys hack up a hanging pig carcass with their creations, and give the best maker a check for ten gees. Who says there's "nothing good" on tv to watch! LOL (goes on a few minutes). :D
@@JimmyTownmouse Not just high carbon - high manganese, just like your car axle. They also found a matching composition ore deposit just south of Damascus which is interesting to say the least...
1) Yea, without much torque, it's a toy.
2) Rechargeable AAA are 1.2v. Not useless. Lack of devices needing power makes it useless.
3) I've heard that quenching in blood is almost as good as oil. Both way better then water. Personally I'd go with oil.
you can put the batteries on a circuit and get more voltage out of them. also you don't need very high voltage for electrochemical processes such as gold plating.
@@patricioansaldi8021 you could run them in series is what you are meaning to say. Simply put Voltage is Electrical pressure.
@@MrDmadness yeah series thanks lol I'm an electrical noob over here
@@patricioansaldi8021 the 3 types of circuits are series ( one battery into another into another etc ) parallel ( 2 batterys side by side feedign a single device at the switch leg, or series paralel ( 2 batterys or more into an equal number into an equal number etc )
when you run batterys in series you get ADDITIVE PRESSURE ( VOLTAGE ) WHEN YOU RUN IN PARALEL YOU GET ADDITIVE AMPERAGE ( FLOW ) .. sorry for those random caps... :)
@@MrDmadness no that makes sense thanks a lot!
Thank you! That was so enjoyable!
I'm still most intrigued and impressed by the antikythera mechanism.
Communication is the key to revolution
I agree and think that's why the ultimate source of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution is the printing press.
Your wootz/Damascus steel information is quite a ways off. Not that I can fault you, the story is very complex and confusing.
Wootz is what is called "crucible" steel. It is made by placing ore and carbon in a crucible and melting it down. It's fairly hard to do, so it's not a particularly common method, it's also really hard to get right. Wootz is unusual in several ways. The recipe was very very good, but the ore contained nearly ideal additions of vanadium, molybdenum and manganese. These additions allow a higher carbon content before the metal goes from "steel" to "cast iron". Thus the mystery over the ages, even someone with the right recipe, if they lacked the ore from that one specific mine in India, would make cast iron instead of steel.
Damascus is the European attempt to mimic wootz. It is often called "pattern welded" to avoid confusion in modern conversations. Though "Damascus steel" is almost universally assumed to mean pattern welded. Damascus makes for some remarkably pretty work, and it is not really so different from how ancient "bloom steel" was made, also how Japanese sword steel is still made. The big difference is the inclusion of nickle, or chromium bearing ore in one of the component layers in order to enhance the contrast between them. Ironically, this did make for superior steel. And so was a very popular method. It remains today a common practice for bladesmiths.
Check out Alec Steele on RUclips for some cool videos about pattern welded Damascus black smithing.
Yes Alec Steele does great work and is very entertaining and educational.
Fascinating. Thanks for this!
Your information is also quite a ways off. Wootz was not just crucible steel, it was steel made from ore mined from certain parts of India, probably near Hyderabad. There was no special recipe. Those trace elements - vanadium, molybdenum, etc. - were simply inclusions common in steel that was forged from ore mined in those areas. They didn't actually know how to make it the steel turn out this way, they only knew that it was somehow superior to other steels made elsewhere. The main reason for the method becoming lost is probably because the mines ran out of ore.
Like the video says, medieval Damascus steel was not an attempt to mimic Wootz. Damascus was what the Europeans called it, because that's where they first encountered it. Modern Damascus is pattern welded steel that became popularly known as 'Damascus steel' sometime in the 1970s. The patterns are created by forge-welding alternating billets of high carbon and low alloy nickel steel together, shaping the steel into a blade, then submerging it in acid. This does NOT result in superior steel. It has no practical benefit in regards to quality, it's only done to look pretty.
It's commonly believed that medieval Damascus, or Wootz, is a so-called 'lost art', but this is not the case. Wootz has been successfully recreated, in both appearance and chemical composition, by a number of people since the late 1990s, and possibly before. It's just a pointless exercise, since modern steel is much better.
My man Joe knows what he's saying stop trolling.
That demascus steel is so interesting I've seen people try to recreate it but knowing theres a rare ancient OG demascus steel blade makes life a little more exciting lol
One thing that made things come together in the recent past is the velocity of information. Further back, information transfer was very slow and folks did not want to pass on their trade secrets. The patent system, whereby someone's secrets were publicized but only protected for a few years, revealed a lot of information but it was how quickly the information could get from one place to another that really sped up progress.
Notice that today, where the velocity of information is essentially infinite, our growth of knowledge is explosive.
I wonder if cave men thought to themselves......"imagine where we would be now, if we had learned how to harness fire 1000's of moons ago...."
The Gutenberg press, allowed scientific publication to be more widely available. This flow of information was key to dissemination of knowledge
Baghdad battery is probably hidden away in that US Fed Gov giant warehouse at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
I found this fascinating, and subscribed .
9:19 that's what's she said... sorry I had to 😂😂
Honestly thank you for what you do. This is one of those channels that should never stop posting videos. This is the best kind of educational content; explained in such a good, close and funny way.
I like your use of the Wilhelm scream in this one.
Baghdad Battery was either an ancient defibrillator or a practical joke for Parthian parties.
I would say religious persecution has and will set us back
+
Nope.
Religion is a Habit. Like Waking up every morning to go to work is alot of people's religion.
@Raa16 Not a historian but from what I have learned science was looked on as "black magic". Anything that they could not understand quickly would be considered magic and was outlawed. I have read that a lot of the scientists of the past had to write there discoveries in private to avoid persecution. This is not based on my extensive knowledge.
@Raa16 I miss read the statement. I don't currently see any religious persecution in the US. In other third world countries I could imagine this is still possible. Not as much as science versus religion but more so people born into a certain class would be ignored no matter how amazing there skills are. Again not facts just my impression of what I see on the news of third world countries.