The Box of Chocolates Thread (You never know what you're going to get!)

What's with the 'certifiable dip****' undertitle given out to one rickroll?

Seems like bad taste, and against forum rules let alone etiquette. Was it a joke that flew over my head?

One might argue it was a self-request, but I'm happy to change it back if he wants. Yes, it's a joke that you missed, that rick took in good humour at the time AFAIK.

Alright! Glad to hear the establishment is still esteemed and in good form.

Enjoyed this vid on the history of punctuation, from the same channel I posted a while back (that you liked, Bobo).

Apparently, the Christians wanted to leave minimal room for ambiguity when spreading the word of god. Wonder what changed.

Yeah, I subscribed to his channel, thanks again. 😀

Completely random thought.

Imagine that you are immediately transported back to the time of the Italian Renaissance, or if you prefer, the height of the Roman Empire. You must live the rest of your life in this historical period. You can speak the language. You can't bring anything with you. Your goal is to be regarded within this historical time period as a scientific/engineering genius.

Within reason, you have money to pay the skilled artisans of the era to do work for you. But those artisans only know what they know. If you want them to do something unfamiliar, you must teach them. And the usual constraints on access to resources apply. You don't suddenly have access to enriched uranium at the local market.

With these caveats, would you succeed in your goal of being recognized as a scientific/engineering genius? How long would it take? In what area would you focus?

The entire rest of my life would be dedicated to NOT letting anyone know what I know lest I be immediately burned as a witch

Secretly, I would be trying to make decent soap and disinfectants.

electricty

they had copper and building generaters, motors etc is quite easy

also easy to to invent the wireless radio. This may run into the being burned as a witch problem

Thanks chez, good thing we've got you around to come up with all the novel ideas.

Yes, what could possibly go wrong introducing electricity to the ancient Romans

you're welcome

also penicillin

Bolded is definitely a concern, especially if you plan to focus on medicine.

I'm with CN. Medicine and try to minimize the plague as much as possible but still be the inventor of those kick ass masks.

Oh I wouldn’t be focusing on medicine. The soap and disinfectants would be just for me. 😀

With no research whatsoever, would you be able to explain to a group of skilled artisans how to build a functional steam powered turbine? I understand the general idea, but I don't think I could.

With respect to the light bulb, tungsten wasn't isolated as a metal until the late 1700s. Would you know how to find tungsten deposits, isolate the tungsten as a metals, and draw the isolated metal into a very fine filament. Carbon was isolated much earlier, but I wouldn't know how to work carbon into a filament either.

The ancient greeks wrote it all down for you

Yeah, now that I think of it, light bulb might not be so easy. Also, I believe that you need to create a near-vacuum inside the filament chamber (or fill it with a noble gas like neon or argon), otherwise the filament burns out straight away. I wouldn't know how to do that.

Wrt to the generator - ok, even if we can't build a steam turbine, we can have it cranked by humans or animals to start with, since the magic is in the electricity it generates, not in the rotary motion that drives it. I assume gears are available to us if we need to give it some go faster juice. We would need to find a way to ensure it spins at a constant rate, but we can leave that to the engineers.

I think I could give instructions on how to build a rudimentary functional AC motor. I doubt I could build one myself, since I'm completely useless at any sort of actual engineering. "Hook that up to that bit. Make sure that bit doesn't touch that bit so it can spin. Work the rest out for yourselves."

Basically, I'd be like chez - an ideas guy. "Hey, have y'all thought about having world peace?"

To state the obvious, this would be much easier for some people than others. I imagine that mechanical engineers, chemists, and civil engineers probably would succeed with relatively little problem. But I am not any of those things.

For the average smart person with no specialized training in science or engineering, I think this might be much more difficult than it appears.

My first thought was that I might be able to explain to skilled artisans how to build a bicycle. I would be stuck with wooden wheels though. I would have no idea how to make rubber tires.

Also tell em to kill the rats

I assume that there was a fair bit of knowledge about gears, but I don't know exactly how much.

Given the steam engine had alaaedy been invented, I might change my answer to pretty much the whole of the industrial revolution

You could wow them with modern notions around the philosophy of jurisprudence.

Yeah, you're not gonna do great.

Several years ago, I carved a plague doctor jack-o-lantern. It looked almost exactly like this.

I don't know who this guy is, but we must have been working off the same example we found on the internet.

According to Wikipedia, the only steam "engines" that existed before the Renaissance were basically novelties used to demonstrate the power of steam. Steam engines were not used during the Renaissance or the Roman Empire to do work.