Technology Lost to Time – New S

For as long as humans have called this wet rock home, we’ve had a bit of a creative streak. Evolution as a natural mother was a tad unkind, and harsh in her judgements, but despite the scars of our upbringing, our species has managed to innovate and create some truly amazing tools that have helped us survive to the modern day.

One of the principles of innovation used to be throwing out what didn’t work, though today one could say we throw out what isn’t profitable, even if it’s the best functional option. That isn’t a problem in of itself until we throw the baby out with the bathwater. In which case many truly amazing feats of engineering, science, math, and culture, are lost to the ever-lapping waves of the maw of time, which consumes all without remorse.

In this series, I want to focus on some of the forgotten pieces of technology that would be incredibly useful to us modern humans. The first two, which I will cover in the next two posts are Roman Concrete and Greek Fire. One a marvel of chemical engineering, and the other being much the same but also a weapon of mass destruction.

I’ll admit, Roman Concrete would be helpful, but Greek Fire just sounds insanely cool.

Stay tuned, and next week you’ll see some truly awesome feats of historical chemical engineering!

Schedule:

Next Week: Roman Concrete

Upcoming: Greek Fire