4 ms·

Well, imagine how much knowledge gets lost through the ages. If there aren't contemporary specialists who value or have enough time to study a technology or a c

Well, imagine how much knowledge gets lost through the ages. If there aren't contemporary specialists who value or have enough time to study a technology or a cultural work, it could eventually just disappear. Add to that that different ages and societies build and create from different frameworks, then its conceivable that there are valuable pieces of information that our current society may never uncover or discover, just by virtue of working within a completely different context.

jbay808 7y ago
Yeah. It is a mistake to believe that technology can only progress forward. If a generation dies without passing on certain knowledge, it's lost and has to be rediscovered the hard way, and that can certainly happen to technological know-how just like anything else.
- cbanek 7y ago
  This is why even though the US already built a few Saturn V rockets, building the next one would be really hard.
  - ashleyn 7y ago
    I'm just thinking right now about how we have terrible knowledge silos at work and how screwed we'd be if these people won the lottery. I'm pretty sure NASA had the same problem and we can't rebuild a Saturn V even if we wanted to. Didn't we also forget how to build nuclear bombs or something?
    - cbanek 7y ago
      No, sadly there's money in building nuclear bombs. But we might be at risk of losing track of where the nuclear waste is, and how to keep track of it. So here's the standard for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warning_messages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warnin...
      - DanBC 7y ago
        There was this about a component called "fogbank" : https://inmilitary.com/lost-technology-a-weapon-so-classified-even-the-us-government-forgot-it-existed/ https://inmilitary.com/lost-technology-a-weapon-so-classifie... Discussed here this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20115211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20115211
    - DanBC 7y ago
      I think you're talking about "fogbank"? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20115211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20115211
  - cardiffspaceman 7y ago
    > jbay808: * If a generation dies without passing on certain knowledge, it's lost and has to be rediscovered the hard way, and that can certainly happen to technological know-how just like anything else. * > cbanek: Building the next [Saturn V] would be really hard Leading edge technology isn't known by that many people to begin with, so it's easier to lose. Even though the organization that built Saturn V rockets was huge and lasted several years, there are still details that will take, as I understand it, a bit of archaeology to get at. If a technique doesn't become routine, can technology be said to have progressed up to that technique?
    - jbay808 7y ago
      I'm not an expert, but from what I understand, the hard part wouldn't be the cutting edge rocket science (choice of fuels, valve design, etc) but the fabrication techniques. The 1960s had a generation of highly skilled welders, machinists, and sheet metal workers that had honed their craft in the factories of the second world war. The USA today doesn't seem to have the same quantity of skilled workers and NASA has to design parts differently to allow automated tools to do the work. But those fabrication techniques probably would have been considered routine at the time, although maybe above-average in complexity. So even a routine technology can be, in a sense, lost if it falls out of demand.
      - est31 7y ago
        Yup that's what curious droid's video on this is saying as well [1]. Basically the plans all were off a little bit and each rocket engine was hand-tailored to the demands of the individual rocket by these skilled people you mentioned. They did document their changes but only on scrap notes that since were lost. The plans themselves that were archived don't contain those notes and even if they had them, you couldn't find people with such skills any more. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovD0aLdRUs0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovD0aLdRUs0
- mentos 7y ago
  This is part of the theme of Johnathan Blowes talk here was worth watching https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk
- HankB99 7y ago
  It is surprising how easy that can happen. I returned to a client to help with the next generation of a product they were developing. I helpwd with the S/W for the earlier generation. The people working on it when I returned had the source code but none of the supporting documentation. The documentation wasn't extensive and without my help, it might have been difficult to understand anyway. (Or maybe I underestimate the folks working on it at the time.) The bigger problem was that they had no idea what was missing, let alone where to find it. Much of it included descriptions of why things were done the way they were. On my return, I knew what was missing but had no idea where it was. In the ensuing decade, the company had been through three generations of documentation archives and I had to ask to get access to anything in the new system. I didn't know what to ask for. Further, they gave me a new login and could not provide access to my old email account. (Much of the documentation was shared via email attachments.) I got lucky and ran across another engineer who had worked on the project and had saved a bunch of stuff. He was now with IT, had helped with the document migration and knew where I could find it. I found that a pretty tenuous way to propogate technical history. That was over a ten year period and many of the participants were still alive and working there. Any break in the chain and they would have had to start the next generation from existing code and the embedded comments (which would be cryptic if you didn't understand how and why the system worked the way it did.)

jbay808 7y ago

Yeah. It is a mistake to believe that technology can only progress forward. If a generation dies without passing on certain knowledge, it's lost and has to be rediscovered the hard way, and that can certainly happen to technological know-how just like anything else.

cbanek 7y ago
This is why even though the US already built a few Saturn V rockets, building the next one would be really hard.
- ashleyn 7y ago
  I'm just thinking right now about how we have terrible knowledge silos at work and how screwed we'd be if these people won the lottery. I'm pretty sure NASA had the same problem and we can't rebuild a Saturn V even if we wanted to. Didn't we also forget how to build nuclear bombs or something?
  - cbanek 7y ago
    No, sadly there's money in building nuclear bombs. But we might be at risk of losing track of where the nuclear waste is, and how to keep track of it. So here's the standard for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warning_messages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warnin...
    - DanBC 7y ago
      There was this about a component called "fogbank" : https://inmilitary.com/lost-technology-a-weapon-so-classified-even-the-us-government-forgot-it-existed/ https://inmilitary.com/lost-technology-a-weapon-so-classifie... Discussed here this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20115211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20115211
  - DanBC 7y ago
    I think you're talking about "fogbank"? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20115211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20115211
- cardiffspaceman 7y ago
  > jbay808: * If a generation dies without passing on certain knowledge, it's lost and has to be rediscovered the hard way, and that can certainly happen to technological know-how just like anything else. * > cbanek: Building the next [Saturn V] would be really hard Leading edge technology isn't known by that many people to begin with, so it's easier to lose. Even though the organization that built Saturn V rockets was huge and lasted several years, there are still details that will take, as I understand it, a bit of archaeology to get at. If a technique doesn't become routine, can technology be said to have progressed up to that technique?
  - jbay808 7y ago
    I'm not an expert, but from what I understand, the hard part wouldn't be the cutting edge rocket science (choice of fuels, valve design, etc) but the fabrication techniques. The 1960s had a generation of highly skilled welders, machinists, and sheet metal workers that had honed their craft in the factories of the second world war. The USA today doesn't seem to have the same quantity of skilled workers and NASA has to design parts differently to allow automated tools to do the work. But those fabrication techniques probably would have been considered routine at the time, although maybe above-average in complexity. So even a routine technology can be, in a sense, lost if it falls out of demand.
    - est31 7y ago
      Yup that's what curious droid's video on this is saying as well [1]. Basically the plans all were off a little bit and each rocket engine was hand-tailored to the demands of the individual rocket by these skilled people you mentioned. They did document their changes but only on scrap notes that since were lost. The plans themselves that were archived don't contain those notes and even if they had them, you couldn't find people with such skills any more. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovD0aLdRUs0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovD0aLdRUs0
mentos 7y ago
This is part of the theme of Johnathan Blowes talk here was worth watching https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk
HankB99 7y ago
It is surprising how easy that can happen. I returned to a client to help with the next generation of a product they were developing. I helpwd with the S/W for the earlier generation. The people working on it when I returned had the source code but none of the supporting documentation. The documentation wasn't extensive and without my help, it might have been difficult to understand anyway. (Or maybe I underestimate the folks working on it at the time.) The bigger problem was that they had no idea what was missing, let alone where to find it. Much of it included descriptions of why things were done the way they were. On my return, I knew what was missing but had no idea where it was. In the ensuing decade, the company had been through three generations of documentation archives and I had to ask to get access to anything in the new system. I didn't know what to ask for. Further, they gave me a new login and could not provide access to my old email account. (Much of the documentation was shared via email attachments.) I got lucky and ran across another engineer who had worked on the project and had saved a bunch of stuff. He was now with IT, had helped with the document migration and knew where I could find it. I found that a pretty tenuous way to propogate technical history. That was over a ten year period and many of the participants were still alive and working there. Any break in the chain and they would have had to start the next generation from existing code and the embedded comments (which would be cryptic if you didn't understand how and why the system worked the way it did.)