So your stuck in the year 100... how do you conquer the world?

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Vesayen, ever read Stirlings ISOT?

Originally posted by Vesayen Time for another island in the sea of time scenario .

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Rome and China had similar levels of technology. The most important thing would be a well-developed metalworking infrastructure, some experience with basic chemistry and a strong central government. Both China and Rome would do rather nicely.

I really don't think it would be possible to conquer the world from either position. You might succeed in giving a significant leg up. My goal would be to offer enough practical advice in terms of pyrotechnics, metal fabrication etc. to keep the state running and interested in continued technical development, then to write down as much of physics, modern mathematics etc. as I could from the ground up. Would hasten the pace of human advance for the next millennium or so. Might get them to the industrial revolution a thousand years early, then power them into the electronic age rather quickly after that...

I'd give them penicillin. I would be revered as god...

[lord of the mark]

originally posted by lord of the mark
Vesayen, ever read Stirlings ISOT?

Originally posted by Vesayen Time for another island in the sea of time scenario



well i was that, of course - but you dont seem to address the kinds of issues that Stirling specifically raises in ISOT, and that most folks here are ignoring. Stirling has said in SHWI (i think) that one of the reasons he wrote ISOT was to disabuse folks of the idea that one guy could create the industrial revolution all on his lonesome - he wants to show that progress is a SOCIAL product. You need a certain base of people with the necessary skills - and even then it will take the tools to make the tools, etc.

Nantucket lucks out - it has A. a guy who is an amateur machininist, with the skills to use a lathe to make a lathe. B. A professional gardener. C. is an island, and has a large number of people with boating and fishing skills. D. A set of wind mills designed to produce electricity. E. Lots of museums with 19th and 18th c tools, etc. F. A full library, etc.

[Spec]

Originally posted by Agathon
Well, at least I'm not in NZ. I'd rather be scalped than eaten by Maoris.

edit: 100 AD. No Maoris – rather I get pecked to death by giant birds (the moa).

They were vegetariens you know....

[KrazyHorse]

NZ would actually be a pretty decent place to get stuck. Nobody to kill you, lots of game too stupid to run from humans...

[KrazyHorse]

I'd spend my days carving the Dirac equation in 5 metre high letters into a cliff face.

That ought to **** with some people's minds a couple of millennia later.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I'd spend my days carving the Dirac equation in 5 metre high letters into a cliff face.

That ought to **** with some people's minds a couple of millennia later.

Are you being subsidized by Von Daniken ?

[KrazyHorse]

Might as well give the conspiracy theorists something to work with.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Might as well give the conspiracy theorists something to work with.

But you know what the wind and the rain will have done to your lovely equations, years later...


they will blurrily show mankind worshipping spacefaring goats.

[KrazyHorse]

Gouges a few inches deep aren't going to be wrecked by 2000 years of rain.

Maybe I'll find a cave to put another copy in, just in case.

[Jon Miller]

or even just write hundreds of copies...

some should survive
.
Jon Miller

[Ramo]

Or maybe not.

Archimedes invented integral calculus, but we didn't find out until just a couple years ago. Some bloody monks decided to write over a copy of "The Method." There was a neat Nova episode on this a while back.

[pchang]

I did not know that. If true, I hope those monks are burning in hell.

[KrazyHorse]

Sounds phony, Ramo. Care to substantiate?

[KrazyHorse]

Especially given the fact that Archimedes didn't know about cartesian coordinates, functions, algebraic equations....