Did you find this year’s new technology presented at CES boring? The Antikythera device has been described as being so sophisticated for a 2100 year old machine that it’s discovery 100 years ago was like discovering a functioning Buick in the middle ages. Recent technological advances in 3D imaging have allowed us to see that that may be putting it mildly.
#19 – Of course, most of the east is STILL in the dark ages.
#7 #9
We are Romans!
All of the western culture is heavily influenced by the Greco-Roman world. Just look at Washington D.C. All the buildings are Neoclassical, with a bit of suspension of disbelief one could just picture itself in ancient Rome. The urban society is not that different from what could be experienced in Rome. All the southern European Languages are derived from Latin, and even English has a strong Latin influence. American Government has a senate and a congress…
What are you talking about? We ARE Romans.
The Greeks borrowed a lot from the ancient Egyptian and Babyloian astronomers, but that doesn’t make their contribution less astonishing.
Sometimes it takes a dash of sheer genius to make an advancement, similar to the way that Newton synthesized the knowledge of Tyco Brahe, Kepler, Galileo and Descartes into the universal law of gravitation.
#22 Sush! Most moderns don’t know that. They forget that each generation must stand on the shoulders of the giants that went before or we’d all still be working out the mysteries of pebble tools.
The achievements shown in this device are staggering and yes much was lost during the dark ages. Two key inventions the Romans missed were paper and the printing press. This vastly limited access to learning and during the dark ages books almost vanished throughout much of Europe. Yes a few continued to be copied by isolated monks but more was lost than saved not that progress completely came to an end. Some advances were still being made in metal working and farming.
It is always possible for another dark age to occur. Most of our knowledge is now in a highly perishable form and could easily vanish in a single generation and our national leaders appear to me to be a disgrace to our species.
The claims being made by the government as relates to the the health care bills among others bears no resemblance to the bills and the people that claim that they are in any way budget neutral have to know the claim is a staggering bold faced lie. What they actually expect to achieve other than the ruination of the nation escapes me.
Perhaps they have lost the skill needed to do basic math? Perhaps they suffer from dementia. All I can figure out is that they are completely dishonest or completely delusional. Of course nothing excludes their being both I suppose.
What I do know is they are neither reasonable nor prudent and we are heading for the crapper of history. No nation can long survive bad leaders making bad choices.
“The achievements shown in this device are staggering and yes much was lost during the dark ages.”
In other words, when Christianity was in control of the West.
As someone commented in the article that lead me to those videos put it, if it hadn’t been for Christianity stomping on science and free thought, imagine where we’d be technologically today. We’d have had colonies on Mars hundreds of years ago, etc.
#25
I’m no fan of Catholic Church either but that really is not a fair assessment. Even during the height of the Roman empire, the East was always the wealthier of the two sides of the Empire; it’s just that the center of the empire happened to be in Rome. There wasn’t much scientific or mathematical thought in West to begin with although there was plenty of engineering thought. When Constantine moved the capital to Istanbul, what little brain trust existed in the West left with him. Were it not for the Church and its foolhardy crusades, the West would have remained a cesspool of ignorance for generations even longer than it did.
Further, your claim that the Church is responsible for holding us back is not quite on target. The Middle-East, India, Egypt and China had plenty of geniuses in science and mathematics and yet they did not go on to quickly develop rockets or even explore and colonize the globe. It was the Church’s notion of “baptizing the heathens” (that and money) that pushed the Europeans to colonize and thus spread their culture across the planet.
7. GetSmart “Although the idea of the Roman Empire having jet aircraft, electronics and atomic weapons by the Sixth or Seventh Century A.D. is kind of scary.”
Kinda like Iran with nuclear weapons?
RBG
Our ancestors weren’t stupid. Technology is different than science. This object is technology. It created a device that demonstrated the science of the known world. People had known all about the heavens for millenia.
Read this book,”The Ancient Engineers” by L. Sprague de Camp. Filled with well researched stuff on our ancient technology and knowledge. You’ll be amazed at what was known and built during ancient times. Some is obviously wrong given the additional research we have over when the book was written. For want of one or two breakthroughs, the modern world would have been here around 300 AD.
#28 RBG: # 27 RBG said, on January 10th, 2010 at 7:46 am
7. GetSmart “Although the idea of the Roman Empire having jet aircraft, electronics and atomic weapons by the Sixth or Seventh Century A.D. is kind of scary.”
Kinda like Iran with nuclear weapons?
Nope. The Romans were first order empire builders, real serious s.o.b’s. They didn’t make sabers to rattle at their enemies, they invaded your county, mass murdered anybody who looked at them the wrong way, enslaved any survivors, stole anything of value and burned the rest. Given a hypothetical parity level of technology, and some kind of a time warp, the Third Reich facing off against the Romans would most likely ended up with the Nazis fleeing for their very lives. No, Iran ain’t in the Big Leagues, nukes or not, you forget Saddam fought them to a standstill a while back.
Yes it is amazing what technology and science are capable of achieving. It is usually humankind (men, almost singlehandedly) that destroys it’s own knowledge through senseless wars and “organized” religion – oft they go hand in hand. You really want to see what we can do, stop the insanity of these 2 actions.
#30 Actually I’d say socialism and the nanny state is what is putting on the brakes right now along with dictators. Like organized religions you have a bunch of people that know best and intend to impose it on the rest in the peoples best interest of course.
They are taking control of everything and as they do innovation and commercial and technological growth is slowing down because people lack the freedom to accomplish anything and since hard work isn’t being rewarded most just give up and stop fighting the system.
I don’t know where the more progressive and innovative states of the future will be but not in Europe or North America unless all the others do worse.
I’m not sure why so many people loath meritocracy but they do.
I say it just evolved from the ground. How do we know it had a creator?