Lost Wisdom of the Ancients or failure on our part?

Originally posted by GezinhoKiko

Originally posted by Harte
We typically don't store information that way, since carving on stone is a lousy way to store information.

This i cant agree with,
most of everything we know of ancient cultures comes directly from such carved stone.

Imagine a disaster that wipes out most of the Earths population, theres a few survivors scattered around the World, in all the devastation, it is likely that all electronic gadgetry will be smashed, broken, etc.
Then what?

If there was a huge megalithic structure made of stone that contained all 'vital' information for future generations, then in all probability the structure and info contained 'carved' on the 'walls' will survive.
We have many such structures that have stood the test of time and therefore carving walls is still essential today in my opinion.

Originally posted by LUXUS

I just don't believe it, would be too brittle and then you have the problem that we have hieroglyphs carved in diorite too.

Originally posted by JayinAR
There is actually a lot of stuff that would last quite awhile if civilization was wiped out today. Though maybe not our IPads, but other stuff. Interstate I-40 here near where I live has an expanse of hundreds of miles of reinforced concrete slabs. That would last quite awhile. As would the excavated embankments running parallel. Underground bunkers, etc...

Originally posted by Watcher26

Originally posted by JayinAR
There is actually a lot of stuff that would last quite awhile if civilization was wiped out today. Though maybe not our IPads, but other stuff. Interstate I-40 here near where I live has an expanse of hundreds of miles of reinforced concrete slabs. That would last quite awhile. As would the excavated embankments running parallel. Underground bunkers, etc...

Here in York, UK, there are Roman baths, now 50 feet underground. They are approximately 1200 years old. In another 1000 years they'll be 100 feet underground. In 10,000 years they'll be 500 feet underground... What can we know of civilisations that may have existed 100,000 years ago?

I think we basically reset every 26,000 years or so, and the OP is right. After the next truly global disaster, we'll be cavemen again, learning how to make fire and knapp flint...

Originally posted by headb
guys and dudes, let me share my 2 cents worth while i till have an iota of common sense left....


you all know that genius peaks the minute you lose it so....


I was wondering the same thing about water. how is it that it is one of the most common substances in this planet and yet display the opposite of most other substances? it expands when frozen. they say it's because the crystalline structure organizes itself as such, but i do believe it is just behaving as this experiment has shown us. that's why it is contradicting the law of expansion and contraction so much. we haven't mastered the laws of thermodynamics as much as we wish for. it's doing the darn opposite as we predicted it would do! why is it defying the obvious laws of thermodynamics?

somewhere along the line, we made a wrong assumption. iti s not just water folks. common. let's open up! we missed something. it isn't that simple. there are always exceptions and we should look into these.the discrepancy between contraction and expansion of crystalline objects is just too much to ignore.

sorry but ive been making ice for a living so it's been in mind for so long - i couldn't remember when i started wondeiring

edit on 14-6-2013 by headb because: (no reason given)

Originally posted by Watcher26

Originally posted by JayinAR
There is actually a lot of stuff that would last quite awhile if civilization was wiped out today. Though maybe not our IPads, but other stuff. Interstate I-40 here near where I live has an expanse of hundreds of miles of reinforced concrete slabs. That would last quite awhile. As would the excavated embankments running parallel. Underground bunkers, etc...

Here in York, UK, there are Roman baths, now 50 feet underground. They are approximately 1200 years old. In another 1000 years they'll be 100 feet underground. In 10,000 years they'll be 500 feet underground... What can we know of civilisations that may have existed 100,000 years ago?

I think we basically reset every 26,000 years or so, and the OP is right. After the next truly global disaster, we'll be cavemen again, learning how to make fire and knapp flint...

The Babylonian number system had a base of sixty, inherited from the Sumerian and Akkadian civilizations, and possibly motivated by the large number of divisors which 60 has. The sexagesimal measurement of time and of geometric angles is a legacy of the Babylonian system.

The number system in the Mali Empire was also based on sixty (this is reflected in the counting system of the Maasina Fulfulde, a variant of the Fula language spoken in contemporary Mali).[2] The Ekagi of Western New Guinea have also used base 60,[3] and the sexagenary cycle also plays a role in Chinese calendar and numerology.

Babylonian numerals were written in cuneiform, using a wedge-tipped reed stylus to make a mark on a soft clay tablet which would be exposed in the sun to harden to create a permanent record. The Babylonians, who were famous for their astronomical observations and calculations (aided by their invention of the abacus), used a sexagesimal (base-60) positional numeral system inherited from the Sumerian and also Akkadian civilizations. Neither of the predecessors was a positional system (having a convention for which ‘end’ of the numeral represented the units).

Only two symbols ( to count units and to count tens) were used to notate the 59 non-zero digits. These symbols and their values were combined to form a digit in a sign-value notation way similar to that of Roman numerals; for example, the combination represented the digit for 23 (see table of digits below). A space was left to indicate a place without value, similar to the modern-day zero. Babylonians later devised a sign to represent this empty place. They lacked a symbol to serve the function of radix point, so the place of the units had to be inferred from context : could have represented 23 or 23×60 or 23×60×60 or 23/60, etc.

Their system clearly used internal decimal to represent digits, but it was not really a mixed-radix system of bases 10 and 6, since the ten sub-base was used merely to facilitate the representation of the large set of digits needed, while the place-values in a digit string were consistently 60-based and the arithmetic needed to work with these digit strings was correspondingly sexagesimal.

The legacy of sexagesimal still survives to this day, in the form of degrees (360° in a circle or 60° in an angle of an equilateral triangle), minutes, and seconds in trigonometry and the measurement of time, although both of these systems are actually mixed radix.

A common theory is that 60, a superior highly composite number (the previous and next in the series being 12 and 120), was chosen due to its prime factorization: 2×2×3×5, which makes it divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30. In fact, it is the smallest integer divisible by all integers from 1 to 6. Integers and fractions were represented identically — a radix point was not written but rather made clear by context.

Originally posted by neo96


Analog stands the test of time, digital is just a fleeting moment in time, lost.

An astrolabe (Greek: ἀστρολάβος astrolabos, "star-taker")[1] is an elaborate inclinometer, historically used by astronomers, navigators, and astrologers. Its many uses include locating and predicting the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars, determining local time given local latitude and vice-versa, surveying, triangulation, and to cast horoscopes.

It was used in classical antiquity, the Islamic Golden Age, the European Middle Ages and Renaissance for all these purposes. In the Islamic world, it was also used to calculate the Qibla and to find the times for Salah, prayers.

There is often confusion between the astrolabe and the mariner's astrolabe. While the astrolabe could be useful for determining latitude on land, it was an awkward instrument for use on the heaving deck of a ship or in wind. The mariner's astrolabe was developed to address these issues.

An early astrolabe was invented in the Hellenistic world in 150 BC and is often attributed to Hipparchus. A marriage of the planisphere and dioptra, the astrolabe was effectively an analog calculator capable of working out several different kinds of problems in spherical astronomy. Theon of Alexandria wrote a detailed treatise on the astrolabe, and Lewis (2001) argues that Ptolemy used an astrolabe to make the astronomical observations recorded in the Tetrabiblos.[7]

He is considered the founder of trigonometry[1] but is most famous for his incidental discovery of precession of the equinoxes.[2]

For this he certainly made use of the observations and perhaps the mathematical techniques accumulated over centuries by the Chaldeans from Babylonia. He developed trigonometry and constructed trigonometric tables, and he solved several problems of spherical trigonometry. With his solar and lunar theories and his trigonometry, he may have been the first to develop a reliable method to predict solar eclipses. His other reputed achievements include the discovery of Earth's precession, the compilation of the first comprehensive star catalog of the western world, and possibly the invention of the astrolabe, also of the armillary sphere, which he used during the creation of much of the star catalogue. It would be three centuries before Claudius Ptolemaeus' synthesis of astronomy would supersede the work of Hipparchus; it is heavily dependent on it in many areas.

Greek astronomers used the dioptra to measure the positions of stars; both Euclid and Geminus refer to the dioptra in their astronomical works. By the time of Ptolemy (2nd century CE), it was obsolete as an astronomical instrument, having been replaced by the armillary sphere.

He was the first person to use the word "geography" in Greek and he invented the discipline of geography as we understand it.[3] He invented a system of latitude and longitude.

He was the first person to calculate the circumference of the earth...
He was the first to calculate the tilt of the Earth's axis...
He may also have accurately calculated the distance from the earth to the sun and invented the leap day.[4]
He also created the first map of the world incorporating parallels and meridians
Eratosthenes was the founder of scientific chronology; he endeavoured to fix the dates of the chief literary and political events from the conquest of Troy.

Yet the mechanical legacy of Su Song did not end with his work. In about 1150, the writer Xue Jixuan noted that there were four types of clocks in his day, the basic waterclock, the incense clock, the sundial, and the clock with 'revolving and snapping springs' ('gun tan').[49] The rulers of the continuing Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368 AD) had a vested interest in the advancement of mechanical clockworks.[50] The astronomer Guo Shoujing helped restore the Beijing Ancient Observatory beginning in 1276, where he crafted a water-powered armillary sphere and clock with clock jacks being fully implemented and sounding the hours.[51] Complex gearing for uniquely Chinese clockworks were continued in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), with new designs driven by the power of falling sand instead of water to provide motive power to the wheel drive, and some Ming clocks perhaps featured reduction gearing rather than the earlier escapement of Su Song.[12] The earliest such design of a sand-clock was made by Zhan Xiyuan around 1370, which featured not only the scoop wheel of Su Song' device, but also a new addition of a stationary dial face over which a pointer circulated, much like new European clocks of the same period.[52]