Time travel to 1 AD

Muahahaha wrote: »

Tell them to dump that religion crap, that would have been the best practical advice you could have given. If they'd have known that we wouldn't have had the Dark Ages and humanity might be 500 years ahead of where it is now

Utter nonsense. A huge chunk of the science we take for granted today was kicked off by the religious in Europe and elsewhere.

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

Assuming that you'd be reliant on the tools available at the time. Then you would actually need to have knowledge and possess the ability to demonstrate and teach it. Rather than misdiagnosing oneself or others via Google, or needing a calculator to calculate. Yes we all know that the Earth isn't flat, but how many of us could produce and rationalise the formula to prove it to skeptics back in 1 AD? Fúck all is the answer.

Not really. I can think of a fair few people I'd know who could impart practical advancements to a Roman audience.

Rabo Karabekian wrote: »

Whatever you're going to tell them will be pretty pointless unless you do a crash course in Latin or whatever they're speaking where you land.

And even if you do learn Latin, I'll bet we've been pronouncing it wrong so it'll do you **** all good.

Pink Fairy wrote: »

Unless you spoke Hebrew or Aramaic nobody would understand you for a start

Greek is what you'd want. The common language of the Roman Mediterranean was Greek, not Latin. The bit in the Mel Gibson orgy of Jesus BSDM where our hero was talking with Pontious Pilate in Latin was unlikely, far more likely that if such a convo ever took place it would be in Greek.

Paramite Pie wrote: »

Only Europe had the Dark Ages. Middle East, India and China all progressed and yet progress slowed down by the 14/1500s in these countries. China was the least religious (confucianism was more a system of laws rather than an all out belief) but was stagnated for hundreds of years.

Exactly.

China was the most advanced in the world but never invented glass.

Likely because they had invented porcelain as a material for making drinking/food vessels, unlike in Europe were courser pottery was the order of the day. So glass never took off, though no doubt they would have known of it from the silk road with Europe. They certainly knew of Rome and a Chinese lad was found buried in a Roman cemetery a few years back. That's why as you say it's hard to predict how shít will go down. Porcelain is a very fine material, but doesn't lend itself to nearly as many uses as glass, so that tiny difference made for a very different outcome.

Progress is not linear or straightforward. To invent something, you have to conceive of a need for it. And it's hard to imagine something that doesn't exist. Most big discoveries were accidental or were applied in an unintended way.
The lost knowledge required Europeans to experiment to catch up with the rest of civilization, causing new discoveries/accidents from old ideas.

Very much so. Politics makes a huge difference too. The best thing that happened to Europe was Rome, but a better thing was the fall of Rome. Europe was left with much of the knowledge of the Roman world and held it as some ideal in their heads(even down to Hitler) and many competing nations pushed science and technology in that competition. Europe also had a two tiered system. Individuals nations and cultures plus until the Reformation an overall "empire of the soul" in the Roman church. The best of both worlds in many ways.

Monolithic empires stagnate. China is more an empire not a country. Very centralised and rigid, with the odd burst of innovation followed by long periods of stasis(often on dynastic change). They also had little opportunities for social advancement. If you were born a peasant you stayed a peasant. At best and if you were bright enough you might be able to advance in the civil service, but it was incredibly rigid in its not invented here policy. Some marvel that the Chinese language has changed remarkably little over the centuries, but that's a very bad thing(™). Again it shows stagnation. Whereas English, French or Spanish from even 300 years ago can be hard to read.

In Europe even as far back as imperial Rome it was very different. The richest and most powerful man in Herculaneum was the son of a slave. A couple of emperors were descendants of slaves. Social mobility was extremely high in Rome. Later too. One of the Doges of Venice arrived as a pauper as a kid. This encourages invention and innovation and with the competing nations in such a small area shít can kick off really fast.

Take printing. Now contrary to popular the Chinese didn't invent it. IIRC it was the Cambodians? However they had it and used it, but for what? Printing some religious texts and paper money(which they did invent). It makes its way as an invention along the silk road, through the Islamic world were it's utterly ignored(empire again), hits Europe and within a single lifetime kicks off the first real information superhighway. Again there was money to be made, politics and religion to disseminate and nations to compete with. The fact we didn't have a daft overly complicated alphabet helped too.

If I was going back I'd concentrate on areas like steam power(the Greeks had a steam engine of sorts, but it was a kids toy) and food production. Immunisation; smallpox being the biggie would be a real breakthrough(and easy with cowpox being very common). Antibiotics would be great, but very difficult. IIRC the mould that generates penicillin is a very rare one and a real fluke it was even spotted. You could spend a lifetime looking for it and then you wouldn't have the background level of tech to mass produce it.

Gunpowder would be another one I'd bring back and piss easy to make. Sulphur, guano(bird/batshít) and charcoal and you're pretty much there. Just send an inexpensive slave up mt Etna… Show them the power of optics. Don't need to build the Hubble, just a simple two lens telescope would do and give army commanders the raging horn. Concentrate on the military first. They have the cash and the social clout and if you get the Roman army on your side with muskets and shít, you're gonna be buried in cash and Persian floozies in no time.

Obviously printing would be a biggie and again easy to demonstrate. Paper production another. All you need is soaked wood dust a frame with some fine linen stretched across it and water. Papyrus was mad expensive, so paper would catch on. Bird quill pens another simple invention that would be easily demonstrated.

The power of flight… With your newly dried paper, fold up a paper aeroplane and fly it across the room. Simple hang gliders could be doable too. Though you may need to import bamboo for the structure.

Another one; wood production. The Romans had a major hard on and need for timber. It was a time built on the stuff. A basic water driven sawmill would speed up production in a big way. A course on softwood forestry management wouldn't be a bad course to take before hoping in the delorean.