What held us back, technologically, for so long??

Originally posted by EvanB
In my view war has been the mother of invention for the human race, with some of the tech devised now being used for peaceful means..

Wars have always been happening, so this misses in the historical long view, however, the root knowledge booster must have preceded the First World War.

This would tend to negate warfare as an adequate explanation.

Originally posted by TheComte
We had to wait until we learned about the transistor from the Roswell Crash. Once we had that then everything else just fell into place.

Except transistors where invented in 1907 using tube technology (triodes), which predates your theory by a few decades. Transistors themselves were also patented in 1925, also predating your theory.

Originally posted by chr0naut
But I think that by '47 we were well underway into our current knowledge 'boom'.

Can you name one thing you believe was reverse engineered from that crash? Every example I have seen of people trying to prove this theory ended up backfiring in their face.

Originally posted by CaptChaos
I defy anyone to think of something truly new that has been invented since WW2. Even ONE thing, that is not just a refinement of existing tech.

I read the previous responses, and I agree with you, most of those were theories, not inventions. So, here are some modern inventions that (for some of us) have changed lives significantly.

* Velcro (1948) - now we can have tear off clothing!
* Super glue (1951)
* Birth control pills (1954)
* Teflon pans (also 1954)

There are thousands of modern inventions. What drives me nuts is a lot of peopel want to attrbute older technology to being reversed engineered from Roswell. It is insulting to the human race. For example, the concept of fiber optics was invented in 1840 (over 100 years before Roswell), yet I see that as a common example of something reverse engineered from a crash that may or may not be what people claim it is.

Do not underestimate human inguinity. (You can feel free to underestimate my spelling ability.) Most technology is baby steps progression from previous technology (fiber optic communication used today is great example of small developments over time combined with merging two existing technologies).

Originally posted by Kovenov
reply to post by chr0naut

 

Zero, complex numbers, irrational numbers, and such are prime culprits.

Zero and numerical 'place' has been around for thousands of years, so yes, but no, it misses on the time-frame.

Also do irrationals and complex numbers have enough utility in the world of engineering to be a motivator for change?

I would say, no.

Originally posted by alfa1
I'm seeing two requirements.

1. The scientific journal.
Up until a couple of hundred years ago, learning was done in isolation. Mostly, anyone else had to start from scratch and relearn the same things all over again. Progress cant happen that way.
And for the most part, anyone who did write a book waited 20 years and then published a complete summary of everything they knew about that (and some other) topics. Thats way too slow for speedy progress. Especially if you had to wait until printing presses were invented to get a decent number of copies distributed.
But with the scientific journal, you could discover something and let everyone know about it in a much shorter time. And people could quickly respond, and question it with "ah yes, but..."
People no longer had to reinvent the wheel every new generation.

2. Understanding electricity.
And by "understanding", I mean to the point where you could make reliable batteries, use coils of wire to create movement, use movement to create electricity, motors, generator, ammeters, voltmeters.
Pretty much everything we have today - transport, lighting, communications, and more, need this understanding before they could be made to work.

Before these two things, "progress" cant happen.

The scientific journal was well in use, and published as broadly as could be expected, hundreds of years before the change. Alchemists, monks and many others logged their works and discoveries and even the likes of Alhazen & Galileo published.

As for electrical understanding, yes, it fits the time-frame and underlies many of the most publicly accessible advancements.

Originally posted by 4hero

Originally posted by bladerunner44

Originally posted by wlord
lack of electricity ? i dont know, thank god for tesla.

You are correct, the mass distribution of electricity was the fundamental enabling technology that drove the exponential growth in most of our advancements in the last 100 years.

I'm sure oil had a play in this too.

I feel that the change began in the steam age and preceded Benz.

Originally posted by The X
I think of it like this, what would have happened if tesla had been on a planet who would have thrown funding at him because they knew he was going to benefit everyone.
And not kept on a leash of National security or a funding ND agreement for the major bankers of the day.
Government is what holds us back, it is not holding the government back though, they believe they are a breed apart and only serve to protect themselves from us.
It annoys me that government continually attempts to disempower the people, while empowering itself and them feeling belligerance and animosity towards a group of people who do not know any better, in part because of the educational aspect of keeping them stupid and complacent, while also assaulting them with chemicals in the water supply and other electro-magnetic interference with peoples free will and functioning.
The people in power of this world are the biggest bunch of emotional retards ever to have been here.
They don't want you to have it, thats why you don't have it, it's that simple, it is nothing to do with religion in the 21st century.
They don't care that you may have greater aspirations if you were not dumbed down and interfered with, they suffer from massive averice, they needssss it for themsssselvessssesss, sick backward anachronistic retard mongoloid inbred arselickers.

Tesla was wrong on many counts and some of the things he spoke of were impossible or impractical.

EVERYTHING that Tesla did can be explained through the mathematical equations of James Clark Maxwell, which preceded him by nearly 100 years.

Tesla really didn't do that much for science, but he was American.

Originally posted by chr0naut
Humans have been around for ages (3 million or more years according to current Science) and yet it is only in the last 100 or so years that we have progressed from horse & cart to the Internet & Space.

The start of the upward spike of the application of knowledge could have occurred anywhere, (ancient India, China, the Middle East or Greece), at any time but it seemed to come mainly from Europe and only a few decades ago.

So, what was it? Or conversely, what propelled us forward?

Actually...Homo-sapiens and Homo Neaderthalensis have been around about 200,000 years...(give or take 10,000 years or so). There was many years of dual occupation and there was...as is evidence in DNA...inter-racial coupling....it is believed that the religious references to a "Nephalim" was actually referring to Neanderthals..."those without a soul"....is about as close of a direct translation of ancient Hebrew as you are going to get....Nephalim does NOT mean....Giants...this was a total foul up by the Greek interpreters about 1600 to 1800 years ago....sorry believers...but it is the truth...

Neanderthals died out about 30 to 50 thousand years ago....so there was actually a HUGE amount of time we co-existed....here...maybe this will help...

humanorigins.si.edu...

It's a very nice website showing human evolution...concise, easy to understand and shows periods of dual or more occupation...which is assuredly the lead in for the physical differences noticeable in our species today....we are all homo sapiens...but we have rag-tag DNA from one or more sources of extinct hominids....go figure...

But to answer your question...it is religion...beyond a shadow of a doubt....fear of repercussion kept science in the shadows for centuries....only when common, practical and logical sense became accepted did we rush forward scientifically....it was fear....fear of the Vatican...fear of an invisible spaghetti monster....but thankfully....common sense wins out and here we are today....

Originally posted by Brother Stormhammer
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and suggest that what's been "holding us back" isn't religion, capitalism, international banking, or even the Freemasons.

Very few new technologies stand on their own. As a quick and dirty example, Hero of Alexandria described a steam engine...but actually building a practical steam engine had to wait on the development of good enough metals, metal fabrication techniques, and bearings. The metal had to wait on mining and refining techniques to be developed. See where this is going? Ideas have to wait on the hardware to catch up...which is one reason we've seen such massive advances in the last few decades. We're getting better and better at fabricating the hardware to bring ideas into reality, and we've got better and better ways to share data over larger and larger areas, which cuts down on the time wasted re-inventing the wheel.

It's not a conspiracy, it's simply that knowledge and technology build on existing work.

Just my dull, not-at-all-exciting $0.02 (adjusted for inflation, of course)

Perhaps you are right.

Reading your post made me think of the Bessemer Converter. The time-line is right and the production of steel was truly dangerous and uneconomical prior to it.

reply to post by chr0naut


Tesla was Serbian.. er.. Croatian... dude you need a fact checker... I work cheap =)

Originally posted by stAtrill

Originally posted by chr0naut

Originally posted by CaptChaos
Advances have been actively held back and suppressed for almost a hundred years. We are being actively suppressed NOW.

I defy anyone to think of something truly new that has been invented since WW2. Even ONE thing, that is not just a refinement of existing tech.

Here's a few:

The science of genetics and recombinant DNA.
Spintronics,
Graphene, Fullerines and other allotropes of Carbon.
Magnetic monopoles,
Superconductivity, and its associated discoveries.
String theory, M theory and Brane theories,
Theoretical dark energy,
Hawking Radiation,
Memory Alloys,
Metamaterials and negative refractive index,
Space Travel,
Kevlar,
Graphite Polymers,
Lasers and Masers,
Nanotechnology,
Neuro-chemistry,

... as you imagine, I could easily go on for ages.

The overwhelming majority of that list are not inventions, just about every single one is either a discovery or an innovation. Some of them haven't even been observed, and some of them are now being shown to be erroneous. In the interest of being thorough, I will demonstrate this for you:

The science of genetics and recombinant DNA. - Discovery.
Spintronics, -Discovery. Nothing useful has come from this yet.
Graphene, Fullerines and other allotropes of Carbon. -Discovery, by definition.
Magnetic monopoles, -Again, discovery. Existed in nature beforehand (if this is shown to be true)
Superconductivity, and its associated discoveries. -You said it yourself.
String theory, M theory and Brane theories, -these are theories, not inventions. Nothing useful has been produced from them yet.
Theoretical dark energy, -Again, not an invention, and useless.
Hawking Radiation, -theory, useless
Memory Alloys, -innovation, they have been refining this one for the last 4 decades at least
Metamaterials and negative refractive index, -discovery. Existed in nature.
Space Travel, -Not an invention theory, or discovery. Shouldn't be on this list at all
Kevlar, -innovation. They had been iteratively improving plastic strength
Graphite Polymers, -Again, an innovation.
Lasers and Masers, -This may be the only invention on this whole list.
Nanotechnology, -Another discovery. Nothing useful has come of this yet
Neuro-chemistry, -This is still in the theoretical stages. Nothing useful blah blah blah....

Out of that whole list, Lasers may be the only real discovery. So no, you couldn't go on for ages. Lasers are quite possibly the only true invention that we have had. There may be a few more, but they have likely been lost to time.

By your strict definition, the steam and internal combustion engines are just discoveries based upon the expansion of gasses.

Or perhaps someone was just wandering along and suddenly said "I know what that thing is, sitting over there in the corner all this time, its a gene sequencing machine". Nah.

All of these things (excluding the purely theoretical) have, or are producing, invented products that did not exist before.

The post that I originally responded to suggested that we had, essentially, not advanced since the second world war. Perhaps that shows a limited experience of science, invention and manufacturing on the part of the poster.

Originally posted by juleol

Originally posted by lampsalot
I actually think technological growth peaked in the period from 1960-1995 and has since slowed down. Cultural change too. I mean how different is 2012 from the better part of the 90s in terms of the music and popular fashion and culture? Not very much.

I would say that is more of a fact than a belief.
What has changed our life drastically lately besides internet?? Absolutely nothing..
Most of the so called inventions of today are mainly just refined versions of old inventions.
There is nothing in last decades that can compare to the automobile, rocket propulsion, computers, railroads, television and so on.

There is, it is significant and it is increasing.

If it eludes you, is perhaps that you have not kept up with new discoveries and inventions which are now occurring so fast that it is almost beyond human capacity to keep tabs.

Originally posted by nightbringr
reply to post by Buddha1098

 

No idea why your making the unfounded suggestion the Egyptians had electricity. Care to back that up with something?

Electroplated objects.

Evidence of the remains of what must have been rudimentary batteries.

Filament lamps with wires depicted in the construction of the pyramids (and an absence of sooting in dark recesses of pyramids and tombs which had the walls intricately worked with carvings).

Originally posted by Buddha1098
reply to post by chr0naut

 

Tesla was Serbian.. er.. Croatian... dude you need a fact checker... I work cheap =)

edit on 15-3-2012 by Buddha1098 because: Because I need a fact checker too.. =)

He emigrated to America. All of his commercial success happened in, and from, America.

I've been toying with the concept for some time to devote to further cognitive studies I might undertake, but my answer to you would be "scaffolding"

It's metaphorical usage is applied to pedagogical theories...like those of Piaget and Vygotsky. That's part of my academic background, so that's where it comes from.

Nevertheless, the concept of "scaffolding" is applicable on a larger social scale, not just in the ontogeny of an individual's cognitive development.

It's a pretty straightforward metaphor; just as a scaffold would be put up to help with the construction of a building, so too would a metaphorical scaffold be the invisible framework of ideas that form the foundation for the modern development of technology.

In other words, you are not just going to go from clovis points and fired ceramics to fiber optics and electron microscopes. There would be no logical linking of the steps. The two sets of technology are linked, since without clovis points and ceramics you would never get to the complex social structures that stemmed from ease of food-gathering, food storage and cooking (even cooking is a technology that alters our interaction with our environment).

Not every discovery or material object created was necessary for the further steps that lead up until today; likewise, not every potential discovery or material object has been made along the way (or if they have, for whatever reason, they never became so widespread as to lend to finding artifacts of them - or perhaps, they are what explain the oddities we see on this site).

Originally posted by nightbringr
reply to post by Buddha1098

 

No idea why your making the unfounded suggestion the Egyptians had electricity. Care to back that up with something?

I am not he you addressed this to, but I will be happy to help you.
I think you are talking about The Dendera Lightbulb.
Here is another link:
The Ancient Egyptian Light bulb
It has been said that a picture is worth 1000 words....

Communication

Now, we can almost instantly communicate ideas across vast spaces.

Go back 200 years and even if there was an outstanding development in one area, it would take weeks, months or years before it was replicated in another area.

Now once someone comes up with an idea, everyone else can copy and improve on it.

Originally posted by Sphota
I've been toying with the concept for some time to devote to further cognitive studies I might undertake, but my answer to you would be "scaffolding"

It's metaphorical usage is applied to pedagogical theories...like those of Piaget and Vygotsky. That's part of my academic background, so that's where it comes from.

Nevertheless, the concept of "scaffolding" is applicable on a larger social scale, not just in the ontogeny of an individual's cognitive development.

It's a pretty straightforward metaphor; just as a scaffold would be put up to help with the construction of a building, so too would a metaphorical scaffold be the invisible framework of ideas that form the foundation for the modern development of technology.

In other words, you are not just going to go from clovis points and fired ceramics to fiber optics and electron microscopes. There would be no logical linking of the steps. The two sets of technology are linked, since without clovis points and ceramics you would never get to the complex social structures that stemmed from ease of food-gathering, food storage and cooking (even cooking is a technology that alters our interaction with our environment).

Not every discovery or material object created was necessary for the further steps that lead up until today; likewise, not every potential discovery or material object has been made along the way (or if they have, for whatever reason, they never became so widespread as to lend to finding artifacts of them - or perhaps, they are what explain the oddities we see on this site).

I have to confess, although having read some Piaget, I knew nothing of Vygotsky and will do a bit of research after posting this.

My background is in Astrophysics, Computing and Engineering and this colors my viewpoint, somewhat.

I tend to visualize the "march of technology" as something where one thing builds upon another and where previous technology and new discoveries drive invention, but considering the pattern matching and inferential nature of our creative cognitive process, I see how this may not always necessarily be the case.

In your view of these "scaffold" paradigms, what factors may have elicited the "kick in the curve" of such change from arrowheads to beam weapons?

Originally posted by Wildbob77
Communication

Now, we can almost instantly communicate ideas across vast spaces.

Go back 200 years and even if there was an outstanding development in one area, it would take weeks, months or years before it was replicated in another area.

Now once someone comes up with an idea, everyone else can copy and improve on it.

Perhaps this leads to the question; "why were we happy to not communicate for so long prior to this communicative growth"?

reply to post by TLomon

Except transistors where invented in 1907 using tube technology (triodes), which predates your theory by a few decades. Transistors themselves were also patented in 1925, also predating your theory.

You didn't post a source, and this is wrong.
Read here:
HOW COULD AT&T HAVE CREATED THE TRANSISTOR SO QUICKLY IN 1947 WITHOUT THE INPUT OF ALIEN TECHNOLOGY?
Everything electrical has transistors in it. Research Philco, and Motorola, and look for a small electrical company in NYC named ET. Don't laugh, the owners thought to capitalize on the name when the Government disclosed. (Big Laugh There!)

reply to post by CaptChaos


Laser are not a refinement of the flashlight, IDK where you got that from but how about the:

Internet
Nano-Tech
LCD Screens
GPS
Stealth

How are what that poster listed "non-sense" Kevlar is pretty real, so is space travel