5 ms·

I've often wondered if the people making these claims ("you need lasers to make something that flat") are people working in archeology or are actual civil engin

by luma 5y ago

I've often wondered if the people making these claims ("you need lasers to make something that flat") are people working in archeology or are actual civil engineers or machinists etc. Talk to a master machinist about how to make a large stone flat with access to ancient technology and I suspect you'll get a handful of plausible answers.

Joker_vD 5y ago
I've seen exactly blue-collars workers arguing for impossibility: it's hard enough to do with modern technology ("I know it first-hand!"), how would you even do it without it?
- beowulfey 5y ago
  That’s perhaps a testament to our dependence on modern machinery, if the skills did exist once.
  - svachalek 5y ago
    It's fairly simple to construct a way to see your own face. All you need is a high-grade color LCD or OLED display, a high-resolution digital camera, a power source, a few controls and a logic board. Too bad none of this was available before 2010, those poor ancients must have always wondered what they looked like.
    - Joker_vD 5y ago
      You jest, but I've heard a tale from a local engineering college: they regularly give to the graduating-year students a task to design some system which, after you remove all the fancy wordings, is basically insides of a toilet cistern/tank. Year after year, the students keep producing astonishingly convoluted designs.
      - jazzyjackson 5y ago
        I once re-invented the whistling teapot while deeply engrossed in using Arduino for anything and everything. I had only saucepans to boil water with and wished they could alert me once the water reached temp, perhaps optically sensing the turbulance of the surface. My roommate could not roll their eyes enough.
        Joker_vD 5y ago
        Well, if you put a lid on a saucepan (and you should, it conserves energy and makes water boil faster) you can detect it clattering when the water starts to boil! So you don't need any optical input, a microphone will suffice ― which is cheaper, too. Filter out the low frequencies of water humming, amplify the rest, and you got a (not-so-nice-sounding, because it rattles, not whistles) boiling point alarm!
- cruano 5y ago
  It's hard only because you don't have hundred of slaves you can put to work 12+ hours until they pass out
WJW 5y ago
"Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy" is the text I see referenced most often in this context. On the pdf at [1], from page 24 onwards it describes the procedure to create a flat surface accurate to single digit micrometers "from scratch" with nothing but a scraping tool and some dye (and a whole lot of patience). [1] https://pearl-hifi.com/06_Lit_Archive/15_Mfrs_Publications/Moore_Tools/Foundations_of_Mechanical_Accuracy.pdf https://pearl-hifi.com/06_Lit_Archive/15_Mfrs_Publications/M...
- buildsjets 5y ago
  Thank you for posting that, you beat me to it. FOMA is a classic. Here’s a video illustrating the process of creating a microscopically flat surface from three unflat surfaces. It can be done with ancient technology, if you have enough time. https://youtu.be/5m_Opf3nhQU https://youtu.be/5m_Opf3nhQU
  - aeonflux 5y ago
    Haven't watched yet, but I always wonder, what would be their reason to do so? I assume it takes huge amount of time and effort. They would get pretty similar effect by stopping much earlier. No need to polish two stone to death, just to fit one onto another. Whats even weirder, many times they seem to care much more about the connecting sides, not the eye-facing one. I don't buy the slavery-argument. Even with access to "free labor" there is no point in over-expending the time and effort.
    - WJW 5y ago
      They wouldn't grind down the stones to micrometer flatness for construction work, just a mm or so. The type of buildings where you see extremely precise stonework tend to be cathedrals and palaces, where spending insane amounts of labor is kinda the point. It demonstrates to the masses how grand, rich and powerful the inhabitant of the building is. Spending lots of money on a building is a way of showing off.
      - jazzyjackson 5y ago
aeonflux 5y ago
This argument can work both ways. Some people claim everything in Egypt could be done with hands, patience (or by forcing someone). But there are many other clues, suggesting that civilization had access to some very sophisticated tools or machinery. Maybe not lasers, but not hand saws either. Check this short clip for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Oe1--ss51Q&t=917s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Oe1--ss51Q&t=917s It describes a sarcophagus was ditched mid-production, because the cut was made in the wrong way. I am not saying that the conclusion is valid, but it's an interesting data point.

by luma 5y ago

Joker_vD 5y ago

I've seen exactly blue-collars workers arguing for impossibility: it's hard enough to do with modern technology ("I know it first-hand!"), how would you even do it without it?

beowulfey 5y ago
That’s perhaps a testament to our dependence on modern machinery, if the skills did exist once.
- svachalek 5y ago
  It's fairly simple to construct a way to see your own face. All you need is a high-grade color LCD or OLED display, a high-resolution digital camera, a power source, a few controls and a logic board. Too bad none of this was available before 2010, those poor ancients must have always wondered what they looked like.
  - Joker_vD 5y ago
    You jest, but I've heard a tale from a local engineering college: they regularly give to the graduating-year students a task to design some system which, after you remove all the fancy wordings, is basically insides of a toilet cistern/tank. Year after year, the students keep producing astonishingly convoluted designs.
    - jazzyjackson 5y ago
      I once re-invented the whistling teapot while deeply engrossed in using Arduino for anything and everything. I had only saucepans to boil water with and wished they could alert me once the water reached temp, perhaps optically sensing the turbulance of the surface. My roommate could not roll their eyes enough.
      - Joker_vD 5y ago
        Well, if you put a lid on a saucepan (and you should, it conserves energy and makes water boil faster) you can detect it clattering when the water starts to boil! So you don't need any optical input, a microphone will suffice ― which is cheaper, too. Filter out the low frequencies of water humming, amplify the rest, and you got a (not-so-nice-sounding, because it rattles, not whistles) boiling point alarm!
cruano 5y ago
It's hard only because you don't have hundred of slaves you can put to work 12+ hours until they pass out

WJW 5y ago

"Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy" is the text I see referenced most often in this context. On the pdf at [1], from page 24 onwards it describes the procedure to create a flat surface accurate to single digit micrometers "from scratch" with nothing but a scraping tool and some dye (and a whole lot of patience). [1] https://pearl-hifi.com/06_Lit_Archive/15_Mfrs_Publications/Moore_Tools/Foundations_of_Mechanical_Accuracy.pdf https://pearl-hifi.com/06_Lit_Archive/15_Mfrs_Publications/M...

buildsjets 5y ago
Thank you for posting that, you beat me to it. FOMA is a classic. Here’s a video illustrating the process of creating a microscopically flat surface from three unflat surfaces. It can be done with ancient technology, if you have enough time. https://youtu.be/5m_Opf3nhQU https://youtu.be/5m_Opf3nhQU
- aeonflux 5y ago
  Haven't watched yet, but I always wonder, what would be their reason to do so? I assume it takes huge amount of time and effort. They would get pretty similar effect by stopping much earlier. No need to polish two stone to death, just to fit one onto another. Whats even weirder, many times they seem to care much more about the connecting sides, not the eye-facing one. I don't buy the slavery-argument. Even with access to "free labor" there is no point in over-expending the time and effort.
  - WJW 5y ago
    They wouldn't grind down the stones to micrometer flatness for construction work, just a mm or so. The type of buildings where you see extremely precise stonework tend to be cathedrals and palaces, where spending insane amounts of labor is kinda the point. It demonstrates to the masses how grand, rich and powerful the inhabitant of the building is. Spending lots of money on a building is a way of showing off.
    - jazzyjackson 5y ago

aeonflux 5y ago

This argument can work both ways. Some people claim everything in Egypt could be done with hands, patience (or by forcing someone). But there are many other clues, suggesting that civilization had access to some very sophisticated tools or machinery. Maybe not lasers, but not hand saws either. Check this short clip for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Oe1--ss51Q&t=917s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Oe1--ss51Q&t=917s It describes a sarcophagus was ditched mid-production, because the cut was made in the wrong way. I am not saying that the conclusion is valid, but it's an interesting data point.