I love the idea of jumping straight from swords to nukes. Writing prompt: a 16th century blacksmith suddenly realizes, “If I surround an unstable rock with a neutron reflecting earth metal, I can trigger a runaway chain reaction that’ll get that stump out a me yard.”
we love those power laws
Submitted 6 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/fbfcee2d-7250-4f57-9241-33b25f329e05.jpeg
Comments
Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 6 months ago
Technus@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
What always blows my mind to think about is how the materials for our advanced technology were here the whole time. We could have had computers and nuclear energy and spacecraft 20,000 years ago if we’d just had the knowledge.
Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 6 months ago
This is the real reason I follow the Primitive Technology channel. One of these days he’s going to make an arc welder out of mud and bugs.
k110111@feddit.de 6 months ago
Not quite, in order to have a technology you need methods, materials and society needs to be ready for the tech.
I recently learned that 50 years ago someone filed a patent for solar panels with more than 20% efficiency and the us government was like yeah its too revolutionary so you can’t sell this nor tell anyone about this unless it is US military. Imagine we all could have had >20% solar panels 50 years ago, even today we are only marginally above 20% efficiency.
Another example, would be the company who made the iPhone like device well before iPhone but the market wasn’t ready.
Another example that is fucked up. Governments are starting to restrict AI for consumers but also using AI to kill children in Gaza.
I’m pretty sure a lot early doctors were also burned at stakes because they were called witches or smth.
Kedly@lemm.ee 6 months ago
I mean, we need the infrastructure to use them as well, it wasnt just knowledge that was blocking us, each piece of new tech usually needs at least some of the previous to be possible to use
Event_Horizon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Cethin@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
I was confused for a bit while wat hung the video so I watched all of it until the end. I only ended up more confused as time went on. What’s even worse is there’s no indication of what it’s from.
Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 6 months ago
It’s probably a narrow demographic that immediately recognizes Yahoo Serious, isn’t it? Especially in the northern hemisphere.
essell@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Silly meme. Nuclear bombs are much too heavy to wield on the battlefield, and their shape is unsuitable for piercing platemail armour
MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
If only I had some sort of mechanical machine that would lob this 300 kg nuclear bomb 90 m away at my enemy. One day science will catch up to man’s dreams, one day…
thebardingreen@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz 6 months ago
Nuke hurling trebuchets are an underexplored fantasy tech.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 6 months ago
Nuclear artillery shells are an actual thing, though.
HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
To be safe, make it a 90kg nuclear bomb 300m away!
GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 6 months ago
However, depleted uranium tipped arrows sound very cool.
puchaczyk@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
K0W4LSK1@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Venator@lemmy.nz 6 months ago
The real life version of that: …wikipedia.org/…/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)
Kedly@lemm.ee 6 months ago
What about uranium armour tho?
ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
And the stone age was loooong
ThrowawaySobriquet@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The copper age only lasted about 1000 years. Then came the bronze age. But the iron has been going on for longer than the bronze age and copper age combined.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I suspect a large part of it was the collapse of civilization, at least, in that corner of the world.
breadsmasher@lemmy.world 6 months ago
“we’re in a late stage bronzist society, it’ll collapse any day now!”
Sizzler@slrpnk.net 6 months ago
What do you mean there was a mythical sea people?! Lol rabbit hole.
Keanu@lemmynsfw.com 6 months ago
I believe bronze and iron weapons are equally powerful, but bronze is a mixture of copper and tin (requiring two types of input). Iron is more plentiful than tin, so militaries do not need large supplies of tin if they can manipulate iron. Steel, I believe, needs much higher temperatures and purified inputs.
emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
While iron is more plentiful than tin, it is harder to purify than tin or copper. The ‘iron age’ refers to the time when humans started smelting iron, and making tools using various steels and other iron-based alloys. These are generally much stronger than bronze.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Nope. Not at all. Steel weapons are superior to bronze in every way.
Aqarius@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Iron, like actual iron, is weaker than bronze. IIRC, tensile strength is copper<iron<bronze<steel, by roughly x2.
match@pawb.social 6 months ago
Surely we are in a steel age and not an iron age
Sizzler@slrpnk.net 6 months ago
End of silicon age and the start of the quantum age.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Technically it was never the iron age but the steel age.
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 6 months ago
I just posted something about ‘classified ads’ in newspapers and someone asked what classified ads are.
A 30 year old posted that he now felt old after reading that question.
BakerBagel@midwest.social 6 months ago
I had some 50 year old bartender try to be condescending with me saying i probably didn’t know how to use a dial phone. Showed her up by explaining my aunt used to have a Princess phone and had to explain that one to her
Jilanico@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I just realized “dialing a number” comes from turning a dial.
Kedly@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Dial phones are the WEIRDEST thing to feel superior over. As a gimmick they’re fun, as something to be used, they’re annoying as fuck. Imagine dialing a 9 digit number with those things… (Also imagine calling someone in this day and age without a gun pointing to your head)
Mango@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It’s where we put classified information because the kids won’t read news papers!
fossilesque@mander.xyz 6 months ago
wtf is a pennysaver
Aqarius@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Really showing your age, there, Dagwood.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Those, uh, those are advertisements for classified materials, yes?
What kind of newspapers are you reading?
(/jk. I’m old enough to have read the comic section)
exocrinous@startrek.website 6 months ago
I’d rather have a copper spear than a steel sword. Swords are small and weak. Spears are long and powerful.
Aquilae@hexbear.net 6 months ago
I’d rather have a nuclear spear tbh
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Nuclear spear.
Pro: Kills all of your enemies.
Con: Also kills you and everyone you know.
Prethoryn@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Preps sophon on another planet
PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 6 months ago
So dividing by four again will surely give us the timetable for how soon we can expect a planet buster to be developed to harvest Mercury’s raw material to build a Dyson fleet
cucumber_sandwich@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Is there a statistic for estimated energy consumption per capital against time available?
acetanilide@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I found this 🤔
bartolomeo@suppo.fi 6 months ago
How do you measure time available?
affiliate@lemmy.world 6 months ago
what were they doing for all that time
Daxtron2@startrek.website 6 months ago
dying of dysentery
lath@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Playing Copper and Bronzers.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
They’ll say the same thing about us. We could start building a utopia right now.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Utopia relies on greed not existing
Technology relies on information being passed down
cro_magnon_gilf@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
Is there even evidence of copper swords existing? The whole Copper Age is really just in our “history” because it has to be. The archeological evidence is pretty scant. It’s possible people used lead (even easier to melt and shape, and there is evidence of very early use of lead) more than copper before the Bronze Age.
Bashnagdul@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Kopeshes are pretty well established. Which were copper swords.
frezik@midwest.social 6 months ago
I wonder if there’s research out there into the hottest temperature humanity can reach throughout history? So many things that advance technology depend on getting even hotter. With a simple wood fire, you can cook food to make it safer to eat and get more nutrients out of it. With a better design and fuel to get hotter, you can work copper, or glass, or steel. Hotter still and you can fuse atoms.
dislocate_expansion@reddthat.com 6 months ago
::The open air panopticon prison enters the chat::
Siethron@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The gamer switched from the “Aeon” mod to “quick game” pace
valid@lemmynsfw.com 6 months ago
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
kakes@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
And yet we still haven’t figured out nuclear swords smh.
Mango@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Best I can do is a mace. Image
Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website 6 months ago
Damn, every time I think I’m original or clever today, someone beats me to it.
I was just thinking of “demon core on a warhammer/shield/trebuchet (not a catapult because that’s for plebs)”
Small point of pedantry, that is a flail, not a mace. A mace is mounted directly onto a handle, flails have the flexible material between the weight and the handle.
StrongHorseWeakNeigh@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Give it about 38k years
DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 6 months ago
Have hope! The swords were actually invented in 20k years!
Rooskie91@discuss.online 6 months ago
Tell that to my uranium sword.
HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
That would be a Jedi lightsaber. I can’t remember which YT channel calculated the amount of energy in those little bastards but I think it was about a small nuclear recator