If you went back to Rome around at around 50 BC, how difficult

>how difficult would it be

Impossible in one human lifespan. You're trying to fling a society that just discovered the practicalities of sanitation to the fucking space age.

>>2199120
You wouldn't need decades of Industry. I'm talking about making an engine, and then a machine to manufacture wiring, etcetera.

Same question for harvesting and refining oil for a fuel engine

its not simply a problem of technological knowledge, but also of social cohesion and organization.

the more important advances you could bring back would be the scientific method, the idea of nationhood, division of power in a government, methods to reduce corruption, germ theory and water sanitation, central banking and finance, capitalism, civil rights, etc.

Even if you could spread the idea of electronics around, it would not endure without a socially developed enough society to make use of it.

baby steps nigga

How are you supposed to make electronics without magnifiers, specialized tools and shit?

New tools = New technology

>>2199115

There's a manga, anime, and film adaptations about a roman architect who travels into modern japan and brings knowledge about modern japan to improve his bathhouse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Www2vf3Fas

>>2199137
I don't really care about how realistic it is to get them behind; I'm talking about time travel ffs.

Okay so let's say it takes more than a lifetime. Same question, just what WOULD it take? I just don't know a lot about the history of technology or electronics for that matter

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>>2199148
You're not supposed to. That's the question- what steps do you need how long would it take if you knew what you were doing and had the drive?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naLPpDqoFu8

>>2199156
the point is, it'd take massive social reforms for you to make a difference in the field of electronics

its not so simple as "bing bong boing here's a microchip"

you are not going to get an answer you enjoy, because the question you are asking is fundamentally misguided

>>2199201
The question is about technology on the fast track, not the logistics of getting everybody in agreement and making them understand the objective. If I asked what it would take to build a house in the jungle with little to no tools and a group of 10, I don't give a shit about what it takes to get everybody to work together. that's not the question

>>2199150

lol those imaginative chinks

>>2199215
what the heck are you asking?

how hard would it be to make a bit of electronics in Rome? depending on what you mean by "electronics", it ranges from trivial to impossible. do you want a battery and a light bulb? its possible to create something like that using very primitive tools. the Baghdad Battery wasn't really a battery, but its a good example that if you understood the underlying process and had access to the materials, you could replicate the function. maybe someone even did at one point, and it was lost. you could replicate functionality of modern day electronics using ancient parts, such as a mechanical calculator. making anything resembling a modern bit of electronics, though, would be non feasible afaik.

Its kind of a silly question to phrase in the context of 50 BC rome. You may as well ask how difficult it is to create "electronics" from scratch. Its really, really, hard!

you would NOT "fast track" the technology of Rome, however. technological progress in real life was NOTHING AT ALL like some Civ tech tree. your inventions would be an amusing gimmick, but absent a plethora of circumstances that enables innovation to take hold, that is all it would ever amount to.

well, okay, let me answer it a different way, since I think I now get what you're asking.

so, assuming say, you showed up during the reign of Augustus Caesar and described the far future and got him to agree with your idea to "fast track" electronics...,

Well first, you'd need an industrial revolution. electronics require mass manufacturing to be useful; just building shit by artisans ain't gonna cut it. You need to process a lot of fancy, exotic shit, and make lots of identical parts according to strict standards.

That means you need enough agriculture to feed the cities and the industrial workers. That requires more of that boring social shit that you don't want to deal with. But its needed, or you're not getting electronic Rome. Oh, and you also need knowledge of all that industrial shit needed to manufacture electronic equipment, and the production methods needed for that. And different mindsets regarding labor: you need laborers who work year round, not this "seasonal" shit that farmers stick to. More social bullshit!

You also need better education for everyone involved in this process. Workers can't all be drooling idiots, they need to know enough to be trainable. More bullshit. It goes on, and on, and on, and on.

Now if you wanted Rome to make, idk, an electronic calculator, just for kicks? If you had a great knowledge of the materials involved, the manufacture process, and the tools available, yeah I guess you could make one? Might be impossible if you need something synthetic or something, idk. You might be able to make an analog, and maybe even something that fits the definition of a "computer" that'd be some hell machine of hand crafted gears taking up a room.

Its a real tricky question to answer! sorry, like I said, I don't think I'm going to ever produce an answer you find satisfying.

This has been bugging me for awhile and I feel like it's relevant to this thread: What was the first "straight line" that all other straight lines and measurements were derived from? Eventually we developed more and more precise ways of making things straight and even/exact, and measuring the environment generally with machines (down to the atomic scale), but what is the missing link between just "eyeballing it" and having a precise and repeatable way to measure things or create precision parts? How would you even make the first straightedge without some other perfectly straight or flat object to mold/shape it?

and desu i dont know that much about this stuff, either.

like i dont know how hard manufacturing copper (or some other conductive enough material) wire is, or if they could have done so! or how feasible some kind of ancient battery device would actually be. if you could create those two things, you could very well do some cute projects, like letting the emperor use a lightbulb. but even then, it'd be a much bigger pain in the ass than just using a candle, so :V

>>2199299
i mean, the idea of a thing being "straight" isn't that hard to understand. the standards were not that exacting as modern day; shit would just be "good enough".

it helps that the math involved in stuff like physics/measurement all works out the same regardless of the units you use, as long as you keep the unit consistent. force = mass*acceleration no matter if youre using metric, imperial, roman, or klingon units.

the problem of measuring standards was actually pretty fucking tricky, tho, and that standardization of measurement is something that took a long time for societies to come to grips with. i know merchants often had a set of "standard" weights and such that they used when finding out how much gold you gave them or whatever, or when they had to convert one unit of measurement to another.

>>2199134
>making an engine

That's already more than you'll be able to accomplish in your lifespan using classical antiquity technology. Do you realize how complex an internal combustion engine is, nigger? Do you realize how much you need to invent just to get to that point? As a starter, please explain to the class how you're going to create a spark plug without numerous refining technologies that you will need to invent beforehand, in copper, nickel, iron etc.

>>2199162
>You're not supposed to

Oh, I see, you're just fucking retarded and think you can magically willpower yourself through 2000 years of technological advancement with no advanced tools. Only an American can believe he has mystical bullshit abilities to this extent.

>>2199338
> Only an American

nah, I'd blame people's understanding of history being derived from stuff like Civilization's tech tree and the great man stuff where "Edison WILLED THE LIGHTBULB INTO EXISTENCE via the powers of HARD WORK and his GENIUS", and the idea that progress is some certainty that can be accelerated or something.

that and the predominate view that the past was just full of mud eating numbskulls who would call you a witch for using a lighter and shit like that.

>>2199325

I think what they're asking though is how did we get from being able to produce "good enough" to being exact. What was the mechanical/technological innovation.

>>2199374

don't know! all i know is, when people wanted to be precise, they could be _super_ fucking precise, regardless of technological innovation.

there's probably some clever dick techniques involved in some shit tied up in mathematical tricks and concepts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass-and-straightedge_construction

but the actual details involved in manufacturing the tools according to mathematically derived standards is beyond me. all i know is that very precise tools existed, as far back as the Sumerian peoples.

its actually an interesting question; maybe try AskHistorians or something

Regarding the straight line question, you a line (even a thread) between two points could serve as a template to cut out a line

>>2199115
Impossible
Impossible
Impossible

You have no idea what it takes

>>2199515
It's impossible for technology to advance any more quickly than it did? What are the answer is one lifetime or five hundred years, that's the answer to my question.

>you have no idea what it takes

Really? I have no idea the answer to the question I'm fucking asking? Take your pills

>>2199374

Even today, we do not have exact. There is an idea of tolerances. This is the bearable limit of what can be considered as 'good enough'.

For example, every bottle of coke that you see will say that is has 375ml. But does every single bottle of coke that leaves the factory have this exact amount and not 0.0001 ml more? Of course not, that level of precision would cost far more than it would be worth. As long as the AVERAGE is 375 ml within a certain tolerance, coke is fine. A problem arises when bottles of coke are filled with more or less than 375 ml consistantly. I'm guessing this tolerance is about plus or minus 5 ml but it will be some amount that will be too small to notice.

Exactness doesn't really exist. Good enough is always good enough.

read The Man Who Came Early, op

>>2199115
You'd need to invent the industrial revolution first.

>>2199250
A complete revoution would be giving them simple objects that they arlready know but upgraded to be better, like the heavy plow.

That would take hold immediately.

>>2199137
>the idea of nationhood

gg you just broke rome

>>2199115
>What steps on the path to electronics are missing?
>SS physics (how it works), that includes atomic theory, quantum mechanics, theory of relativity etc.
>Chemistry for refining the materials
>Optics for microscopes
>Electricity

IT would be nigh impossible to even get a basic diode. You could have asked for something more realistic like bicycle or steam engine

A steam engine would be possible if you head wealth and access to a bunch of engineers and blacksmiths. Basically if you could sell the idea to crassus you might be in business. Start by demonstrating the concept by hero's steam ball thing, and explain pneumatic pumps and how you can make a steam turbine from there. From there the mechanics of making the turning motion useful are dead simple, you could easily make hammers and pumps and whatnot like the type developed in song china. It would be easier to do it with water power like in song china tho.

I feel like something much more doable and useful to everyone would be bringing back the technology behind the bicycle. The chain would probably be the hardest thing to replicate, but after that, being able to power things like mills and whatnot with leg power would be helpful to even the poorest.

Bringing back some basic tech like a wheelbarrow would be useful. It wouldn't even be hard to put together a wood and canvas glider (unmanned) to prove the concept of lift.

>>2199299
There was a profession where you basically counted the steps of your camel to measure distances. I know it's barely relevant, but that's too hood not to share.

Also, a rope.

>>2199299
Roman surveyors had specialized tools with like string and a board.

>>2199374
For machining precise, interchangable parts, that was a function of the explosion of machine tools in the 19th century.

>>2199615
Quality Engineer here and I feel compelled to respond, coke would need its 'lowest' quantity to be 375 ml or else the packaging is false advertising. If 375 were the average then fully half the coke bottles would have less than the advertised amount. 375 ml would be the 'minimum allowable' volume (six sigma below the average volume).

Just give Julius and Augustus the formula for gunpowder and live out the rest of your newly Patrician life in a villa in Cisalpine Gaul with some fine Roman and barbarian honeys.

>>2201600
A steam power at the time would not be very useful except for tasks like pumping water out of mines like the first steam engines due to cheap slave labour available and the expenses related to building and maintaining the engine.

For a bicycle, the hardest part is probably the wheels which had to have a low enough rolling resistance for a person to power while being strong enough.

>>2201865
On the bright side, out of all the peoples you can bring the bike to, who better than the people who've had the best road system I history?

Solid wood wheels and dried pitch would probably work.

After binging on shit Isekai for a few months, I'm actually curious about what would be actually feasible reinventions to attempt without requiring a photographic memory of complicated blueprints and formulas. Gunpowder? Blast furnaces? Crop rotation?

>>2201936
germ theory is not really an invention but it's a really useful concept to have, that all infectious disease are due to little creatures that exist all over in the environment and that they can be sterilized

if you're a true neckbeard you could also reinvent your favorite wargame, I don't think anyone would have seen anything like it in history, it would really be quite novel

>>2201906
Solid wood wheels would be heavy as hell making it difficult to pedal, especially if there is a slight incline. On the other hand, a tricycle inside a city would be a pretty good replacement for oxen pulled wagons as one can carry a relatively large amount of goods in a flat city with little incline.

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>>2199115
Well that depends

Could you take a few cheat sheets?

How about a few textbooks on English, physics, and chemistry?

>>2202192
The metallurgy behind aluminum alloy wheels isn't beyond them, it's just that rubber would be pretty difficult to acquire en masse, and vulcanization would be hard to engineer. I feel like if you made metal spoked wheels with a light, springy green wood coated in pitch as a tire, you might be able to make it work.

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>>2199115
>Rome around at around 50 BC, What steps on the path to electronics are missing?

>Arrive at Rome's doorstep. Presuming I speak Latin.
>become a minor celebrity by inventing the sandwich, become wealthy by selling pasteurized milk
>become a major one by starting a religious cult where we wash our hands and venerate reason and treat each other according to the golden rule.
>Lead my followers to the promised land: Britannica (not even British). We invest in real estate that in 43 BC will become the city of Londinium, establishing ourselves as the local ruling class.
>Promote education and literacy among the local Britons, reinvesting their rent payments into upgraded infrastructure, roads sanitation, and schools. Combined with London's natural location as a trade hub, we go from being just a bunch of eccentric rich guys investing in a random plot of wilderness to being regional power players in our own right sitting on some of the most valuable trade real estate in the world.
>Side With Octavian from the beginning. Send him gifts as a boy. Send him troops or money when he needs them. Pay more in taxes than what he demands. Be one of his earliest and staunchest supporters. Make it so that when he assumes absolute power, he does not see us as a threat to his power but one of his oldest and closest allies.
>Teach my educated population the scientific method. Encourage them to Romanize the people in the wilderness and bring them into our sphere of influence. Make them a society that prizes knowledge and liberty, but pays their taxes to Rome to keep them from plundering our society. The goal is electricity within my lifetime, and a powerful successor state to help the west repel the Germanics and preserve civilization.

>>2199134
Well they gave great metalworkers

if you actually understand how accumulators function down to the basic components and have a basic engineering education, you could change the world with your inventions within a couple of decades easily.

people saying it takes "multiple lifestimss and context!!" don't have a good grasp on how machines function and how harnessing and transferring power works, and think that even rudimentary machines are out of grasp for someone without a bunch of shit lying around already. it wouldn't be that hard to build a watermill, accumulator and light bulb using bronze age technology if you understood these things thoroughly. you could do it within a week or two if you had access to resources and labor.