Game changing technologies.

[clogged]

With it the knowledge that combustible material was vital to the ever present hearth back in the dawns of time so therefore primitive transport was required as the fire was kept alight at all time where able.

The motif from Cormac McCarthy's books.

 

[Play by Numbers]

Stem cells technology will be huge. Is everyone over the "moral" dilemma however?

There is a good chance we will be able to mass produce pluripotent stem cells, cultured from non feotal stem cells in a humans body soon.

 

[Play by Numbers]

The ballpoint pen.

 

[John]

Often quoted that up to 1/3 of the German population perished. That is rather staggering.

Hence that quote by Wilson being on the money I suggest. The German speaking peoples being federated is a recent phenomena the truth be known. A nation of people split along cultural, religious and even linguistic differences for it's entire history.

 

[John]

Thirty Years war was a disaster for more than just Germany. The distrust the Czech people have for religion is traced back to that event (and Jan Hus). People forget just how evil Catholicism was.

The other area of interest is the Swedes. Gustavus Adolphus is another worth reading about. Even the French intervention. Coming in on the wrong side of the religious equation was one of the amazing events of the war. We even had the Danes getting involved. The smartest man of the lot. James I of England! Kept his kingdoms clear even though his daughter, the winter queen Elizabeth, was the wife of Fredrick of the Palatinate who excepted the Bohemian crown that triggered the war. IMO James I is a seriously under rated historical figure.

 

[John]

The motif from Cormac McCarthy's books.

Only read The Road. I need to read him.

 

[clogged]

The other area of interest is the Swedes. Gustavus Adolphus is another worth reading about. Even the French intervention. Coming in on the wrong side of the religious equation was one of the amazing events of the war. We even had the Danes getting involved. The smartest man of the lot. James I of England! Kept his kingdoms clear even though his daughter, the winter queen Elizabeth, was the wife of Fredrick of the Palatinate who excepted the Bohemian crown that triggered the war. IMO James I is a seriously under rated historical figure.

I think what is so fascinating about the Thirty Years War is that it involved nations who contributed relatively little to continental military history afterwards (Bohemia/Czech, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands). I think in a way that gives clear evidence of how damaging the war was - those who had heavy involvement wanted little more to do with wars.

Even Germany's resurgence as a warlike nation two centuries later had more to do with Prussia than anything else, and they were the German peoples furthest removed from its ravages.

 

[John]

I think what is so fascinating about the Thirty Years War is that it involved nations who contributed relatively little to continental military history afterwards (Bohemia/Czech, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands). I think in a way that gives clear evidence of how damaging the war was - those who had heavy involvement wanted little more to do with wars.

Even Germany's resurgence as a warlike nation two centuries later had more to do with Prussia than anything else, and they were the German peoples furthest removed from its ravages.

This subject certainly deserves its own thread.

 

[iluvparis]

For those interested in reading the effect fire had on evolution I reccomend.

Catching Fire - How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham (author or journal article sourced previously in this thread). Excellently written book of what I'm sure are extremely complex scientific effects of fire.

Quick summary (from memory) - fire allowed us to cook meat, which broke down the meats proteins. This saved digestion time, allowing for smaller stomachs. The energy saved from smaller stomachs was diverted to larger brains and the rest (as they say) is history.

 

[clogged]

I think that to harness fire in the first place you have to be a highly intelligent species. It was still a massive spur in human development, but it's a bit like putting the cart before the horse.

We were already human before we harnessed fire - it was being human that allowed us to harness it.

 

[John]

Crumps book, that I mentioned earlier, has mentioned the Thermometer. Prior to its invention by Daniel Fahrenheit the only units of measurements, admittedly known for thousands of years, were time, length and weight. The abilty to measure heat was a massive breakthrough for science. He says that once started this allowed for other process to be developed such as measuring previous unknown properties such as electrical resistance.

 

[Jakko]

That properganda went out before the flat earth theory.

Care to elaborate on this?

Unless the KM at least tripled its surface force, had U-boats suitable for channel action, had landing craft beyond river barges, crippled SE coastal radar, any realistic ability to take a port like Dover to unload PZs/88s/heavy guns and trucks/HTs, it would always fail. In the alternate thinking mindset, the same airfields in the southeast of the country that had been so cratered and smashed as to be unusable by the RAF...... would magically allow german transport aircraft and support craft to build a strong landing point....?

Despite the lack of fully equipped forces in SE of England, it was still a land with many AA guns (the 3.7 inch 94mm AA gun was every bit as good as the 88 in anti tank role at that stage of the war), in the rearguard of Dunkirk...orders were issued to release the 3.7's for anti tank roles.

Think about war production. In 1940.....Britain was out producing Germany in war equipment by quite a margin. Anything built between Dunkirk and Sea Lion is a massive amount material.

 

[KGBeast]

The Germans never really had the sea power to invade England. The poms smashed the bulk of their landing craft at Calais in 1940 and the Germans knew they could never pull the same trick on the poms that they did to the Norwegians.

 

[John]

Not sure if many agree but I find the Philae comet lander as interesting as it gets and worthy of mention in this thread. As a kid I watched the moon landing and put this event up there. Very exciting.

 

[John]

After our discussion on use of fire in the distant past I cam across this interesting item today.

http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeol...-offers-clues-about-when-humans-mastered-fire

 

[Gus Poyet]

The humble cycle.

 

[I Lost My Keays]

The Wheel

 

[Power Raid]

the ball bearing

 

[I Lost My Keays]

Printing Press?

 

[John]

Printing Press?

Came up early in the thread but a definite yes.

 

[Power Raid]

game changers in war

the tank

 

[nut]

Valcro

 

[The Dice Man]

Crop rotation.

 

[nut]

The Nutribullet

 

[Bunk Moreland]

The mass produced car. Made an incredible change to the freedom of the common man.