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By 100BCE the Greek classical period had already passed and Rome was on the rise. A high level of culture existed in places and sophisticated thought was common
by Todd 17y ago
By 100BCE the Greek classical period had already passed and Rome was on the rise. A high level of culture existed in places and sophisticated thought was commonly expressed in written form.
Metallurgy was sufficient. Many of the works of artisans and craftsmen haven't been duplicated. A great majority of this knowledge was lost to time (c.f., the fire of Alexandria) because copying texts was an enormous amount of work.
Also, even if a great body of knowledge were imparted to people in that period, who's to say that it would be disseminated? The knowledge that went into the construction of the Antikythira mechanism--even the knowledge that such knowledge existed--was lost.
So I would push up the invention of the printing press by 1.5 millenia.
Even without imparting any additional knowledge, the sheer volume of written material that would have been passed down through the centuries would guarantee more rapid advancement of civilization, as well as preservation of history. We would have the works of Sappho, for example. And history would still progress naturally, without artificial interference.
- metra 17y agoDo you know how to build a printing press?
- ugh 17y agoQuote from the question: "With everything we know now ..."
- inklesspen 17y agoAt its most basic, you need a couple of alphabets worth of letters and a rack to set them on. These can be carved out of wood -- they'll need replacing fairly often, but if you get a couple of apprentices to carve out more, you can get a decent start with printing. Don't worry about books at first; start with smaller texts. Of course, to truly make it scalable you'll need metal type. If you're not lucky enough to remember how to make a hand mould or invent lost-wax casting, you'll want to make friends with the nearest goldsmith and see if you can adapt some of his methods. Around this time, if you're lucky, you might remember enough of mechanics to invent the escapement and the sun and planet gear, to kickstart the clockmaking industry. Sailors will thank you, as will the merchants they supply. And if you live long enough, you might be able to combine these two inventions to form the world's first Linotype machine.
- ugh 17y agoHm. If it were so easy (refering to the first paragraph now) people would have thought of it earlier. And I think they did. As far as I know there were some badly working prototypes of printing presses before Gutenberg. Getting there is not all that hard. It's the little details that will get you in the end. Dozens of little things you have to figure out (or find out who figured them out before) in order to solve them. I would guess that any invention is full of those little details. Understanding the basic principle is easy. Getting the details right is hard.
- inklesspen 17y agoSure. Plenty of people thought of it earlier. Just not in the West. In China, they used wooden movable type as early as 1040 CE. Shortly thereafter, they developed ceramic movable type. In 1234, Korea developed metal type through a variant on sand casting. Gutenberg's breakthrough was his method for making metal type. That's why I gave tips for that transition. But even without it, you can use wooden type to start a society on the road to literacy.
- herval 17y agoYou just made me want to play Civilization -- one more time.
- jeffbradberry 17y agoThere's a great little story by L. Sprague de Camp called "Lest Darkness Fall" that is almost exactly this. An archaeologist from the 1930s gets stuck back in the 6th century A.D., and "invents" the printing press (among other things).
- inklesspen 17y agoYeah, I've read that. Also "The Man who Came Early" by Poul Anderson and a lot of similar stories.