Some forgotten-but-important technologies

[Leif Roar]

Canning, electronics (the transistor), dynamite, spinning, distillation, breech loading, artifical fertilizer.

 

[Soneji]

Electronics could come under computers I suppose.

Dynamite is gunpowder. As well as breech loading, ie rifleman and infantry.

 

[dragodon64]

What do you mean "canning" and "spinning"?

 

[Airefuego]

Canning refers to preserving food, I think I read somewhere that Napoleon offered a reward for an invention that would make it easier to supply his army, and the canning process won.

Spinning is the process of turning bits of fluff (cotton, wool) into thread. Then it can be woven into cloth. Mechanised spinning and weaving was a big reason the industrial revolution took off in England.

 

[dragodon64]

Canning refers to preserving food, I think I read somewhere that Napoleon offered a reward for an invention that would make it easier to supply his army, and the canning process won.

Spinning is the process of turning bits of fluff (cotton, wool) into thread. Then it can be woven into cloth. Mechanised spinning and weaving was a big reason the industrial revolution took off in England.

Oh, well I don't know about canning, but spinning is completely covered by Replaceable Parts. Eli Whitney's cotton gin (which started the concept of replaceable parts) allowed large cotton harvests to be used in textile mills, so spinning is pretty unnecessary.

 

[Airefuego]

Yep, I agree that "spinning" in its various forms and evolutions falls into machinery, replaceable parts and industrialization.

The canning process thing is kind of irrelevant in current Civ as there are no real "supply train" and military logistics issues... you know, your scout can sit on a one-tile island for a thousand years and he doesn't starve, your vast massive armies can be in hostile territory for twenty turns but they have plenty to eat, even if it gets a bit expensive... they don't die if they sit still in winter, there's no link between food and armies really, etc.

 

[lutzj]

Ah, but aren't letters just symbols?

Get it through your thick skulls:

Letters are phonetic and used to make up words; characters/logograms represent entire words and can be semantic as well as phonetic.

I just want to throw this out there; WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A LEGITIMATE SOURCE. Seriously, try using Wikipedia in a legitimate collegiate institution and see what happens. As a student of history, my professors specifically stated that Wikipedia was not allowed to be a source. Seriously, ANYONE can go on Wikipedia and write an article..

Wikipedia is more reliable than most of what you can find on the Web; most of its articles are better researched and better written than anything else on a given topic. Using the argument that Wikipedia is unreliable because anyone can write an article is like saying that the Internet is unreliable because anyone can create a website, or that libraries are unreliable because anyone can publish a book.

EDIT: I would also like to add that CFC is not a "legitimate collegiate institution", comparing a casual online community to Oxford is ridiculous.

 

[Leif Roar]

Using the argument that Wikipedia is unreliable because anyone can write an article is like saying that the Internet is unreliable because anyone can create a website, or that libraries are unreliable because anyone can publish a book.

The Internet is unreliable, and not everyone can, in fact, publish a book. When it comes to research, going to the library is a lot more reliable than surfing the web.

 

[Leif Roar]

Oh, well I don't know about canning, but spinning is completely covered by Replaceable Parts. Eli Whitney's cotton gin (which started the concept of replaceable parts) allowed large cotton harvests to be used in textile mills, so spinning is pretty unnecessary.

Mechanical spinning is covered by replaceable parts, but spinning was an important technology long before it was mechanised.

 

[azzaman333]

Mechanical spinning is covered by replaceable parts, but spinning was an important technology long before it was mechanised.

The Wheel. XCL

 

[Leif Roar]

The Wheel. XCL

You don't need a wheel for spinning (the spinning wheel didn't reach Europe until Medieval times.)

 

[occam]

The Internet is unreliable, and not everyone can, in fact, publish a book. When it comes to research, going to the library is a lot more reliable than surfing the web.

You may have a great hierarchy here about what is unreliable in general, but I have to agree with lutzj that wiki is a credible starting point -- because if they have something ridiculous in there that one intends to disprove on Civ Fanatics, one could just as easily disprove it on wiki and then have the wiki reference on one's side.

In other words, correcting wiki works faster and better than advising folks wiki is flawed. And probably more rigorously!

 

[Ying Zheng]

Now, let us make 2+2: if we look at what lies between Sweden, China and the Balcans (occupied by the Avars) we see it is exacty the area which will become soon the Mongol Empire.
China would be overrun by the Mongols too, and the Avar, rather than invading Europe, where running away, together with all the other people in the Middle Age's "barbarian invasions", from somebody else in the east.

So, although not certain, it is nevertheless plausible that the mongols stumble upon the bright new idea, and started to capitalize on it.

good imagination. But more than 1000 years before the mongols rise, the Chinese were already fighting with the Huns, both the 2 nations were using stirrups then.
I don't know exactly who invented the stirrups, but I am sure it can't be the Mongols. They were born too late.

 

[dragodon64]

good imagination. But more than 1000 years before the mongols rise, the Chinese were already fighting with the Huns, both the 2 nations were using stirrups then.
I don't know exactly who invented the stirrups, but I am sure it can't be the Mongols. They were born too late.

Necessity is the mother of invention, not "birthdate." The Mongols would have more need for stirrups than the Chinese would, so it's incorrect stipulation to say they couldn't have discovered the stirrup.

 

[Leif Roar]

Necessity is the mother of invention, not "birthdate." The Mongols would have more need for stirrups than the Chinese would, so it's incorrect stipulation to say they couldn't have discovered the stirrup.

They were, however, cetainly not the first or original inventors of the stirrup. Besides, as the stirrup was known in Asia before the Mongols came on the scene and there is no evidence that they reinvented them in isolation, we should according to Occam's razor assume that the Mongols didn't invent the stirrup but adopted it from others.

 

[dragodon64]

I completely agree with your facts but I did strongly disagree with Ying Zheng's logic as to why the Mongols "couldn't" have invented the stirrups.

 

[lutzj]

Mechanical spinning is covered by replaceable parts, but spinning was an important technology long before it was mechanised.

1. Spinning wheels use technology equivalent to that of Pottery

2. If that doesn't work for you, keep in mind that Machinery covers most simple medieval-era devices, from spinning wheels to crossbows.

 

[lutzj]

...Eli Whitney's cotton gin (which started the concept of replaceable parts)...

I'm pretty sure that the cotton gin didn't inspire Replaceable Parts. I remember from grade-school social studies that the replaceable parts system was started in New England (NE United States) in the early 19th century to compensate for a lack of gunsmiths. It spread to Europe via England during the Great Exhibition of 1851, when an American industrialist impressed locals by taking a several pistols apart, mixing the parts and putting them back together. This system bore the Winchester rifle and the famous pistols of the West, both of which were mass-produced using - guess - replaceable parts.

In case anyone wants to know, this is why RP leads to Rifling: in order to field large numbers of rifles, you need a replacable parts system to make repairs more efficient and to allow mass production.

EDIT: Sorry for the double post!

 

[Zongo]

They were, however, cetainly not the first or original inventors of the stirrup. Besides, as the stirrup was known in Asia before the Mongols came on the scene and there is no evidence that they reinvented them in isolation, we should according to Occam's razor assume that the Mongols didn't invent the stirrup but adopted it from others.

Interesting. Care to post a link? The usual suspect (Wikipedia) writes a 322 AD as the date of the first reliable representation of stirrups (in China). That would leave 9 centuries before the empire of Temujin, and 5 centuries before the first known mention of the mongols by the chinese (in the Tang dinasty).

One of the reasons given for the mongol expansion was the effort to cut them off the silk road trade to which they depended, and through which they possibly grew as a nation, integrating both mongolic and turkic tribes.

So I would think that somebody on the final arc of the silk road came up with the stirrup idea. Either the chinese or some of the nomadic tribes which were not really ethnically defined (Hun is more of a prestigious title than a race identifier) and which would later on spawn the Mongols.

 

[dragodon64]

I'm pretty sure that the cotton gin didn't inspire Replaceable Parts. I remember from grade-school social studies that the replaceable parts system was started in New England (NE United States) in the early 19th century to compensate for a lack of gunsmiths. It spread to Europe via England during the Great Exhibition of 1851, when an American industrialist impressed locals by taking a several pistols apart, mixing the parts and putting them back together. This system bore the Winchester rifle and the famous pistols of the West, both of which were mass-produced using - guess - replaceable parts.

In case anyone wants to know, this is why RP leads to Rifling: in order to field large numbers of rifles, you need a replacable parts system to make repairs more efficient and to allow mass production.

EDIT: Sorry for the double post!

Whitney's cotton gin (not initially, but eventually) used replaceable parts, starting 1795, if I recall. Then some time in the late 1790s (so close to early 19th century), Whitney used the idea in one of his gun factories, where it was very sucessful. And the rest is history .