> "Jerry Kraus" yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:3302b816-2767-4ade-985e-011c09e44bbe@m45g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> On Jul 20, 3:27 pm, "Androcles" wrote:
>
>
>
>
>

>> "Jerry Kraus" yahoo.com> wrote in message

>

>>news:1254c261-65c1-445e-90bd-10fd8b29f45a@k13g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>> On Jul 19, 5:22 pm, "Androcles" wrote:

>

>>> "Jerry Kraus" yahoo.com> wrote in message

>

>>>news:013a370c-6c34-4694-b20c-b5d02d5a90c2@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>>> On Jul 16, 10:47 pm, Sir Frederick fuzzysys.com> wrote:

>

>>>> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:11:16 -0500, Louis Epstein
>>>> main.put.com>
>>>> wrote:

>>>>>In alt.history.what-if Jerry Kraus yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>: It is well known and accepted that simple steam engines -- mostly
>>>>>used
>>>>>: for toys to amuse the wealthy -- existed under the Roman Empire
>>>>>from
>>>>>: the early centuries of the Christian era.
>>>>>:
>>>>>:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria
>>>>>:

>

>>>> Of interest is that the Maya, Inca, and Aztec of ancient
>>>> days in Central and South America used wheels on toys,
>>>> but never in daily life. For instance all things to be
>>>> transported were either carried or drug. No wheeled
>>>> mechanisms (like potter's wheel) existed, though toy
>>>> wheeled carts were common.
>>>> There have been many efforts to rationalize this.
>>>> See :http://www.precolumbianwheel.com/
>>>> Humans are inherently quite primitive.

>

>>> | That IS interesting. I wasn't aware that the wheel existed in any
>>> | form in the Americas. Makes sense, though. After all, a bead is
>>> | almost a wheel, for a toy.

>

>>> | Is the obstacle psychological, perhaps? Some things are
>>> | conceptualized as practical, others not, and it's a self-fulfilling
>>> | prophecy? Certainly, I think people are beginning to have something
>>> | of a conceptual block with controlled nuclear fusion. Like it's a
>>> | physical impossibility, or a perpetual motion device.

>

>>> A wheel is a section of a log, and log is a section of a tree trunk.
>>> The easiest way to move a heavy object is to roll it on a log.
>>> The reason the wheel does NOT get used is the terrain. They
>>> are not much use without roads; rain forests are prairies do not
>>> make good surfaces.
>>> As a consequence the idea gets thought of repeatedly (at least once
>>> per generation) and then discarded repeatedly as impractical.
>>> When Britain's Industrial Revolution took place it was more practical
>>> to move iron ore and coal by canal barge (and then later by rail) than
>>> by muddy roads. Rails need special wheels.- Hide quoted text -

>

>>> - Show quoted text -

>

>> I can't quite see why terrain would have been a problem for all of the
>> Americas in developing the wheel. Surely there is as great a range
>> of terrain in the whole of North and South America as there is in
>> Eurasia and Africa. Or, am I mistaken here?
>> -----------------------------------------------------
>> No roads, no wheels.
>> When the Egyptians built a pyramid they built a road ramp up it
>> to carry the stone aloft. Then they built war chariots and the wheel
>> was firmly established. Egypt was not forest, it was and still is a
>> flood plane of the Nile, flat and clear that humanity took to as
>> farmers, but they used and still use camels to carry their goods
>> across desert.

>

>> Later when Rome conquered Europe they built roads for their wheels,
>> clearing trees out of the path. The wheel is useless in forest. That
>> doesn't mean it can't be thought of, it just means it needs roads to
>> be any use.
>> In the Americas the indigenous people were hunter/gatherers,
>> essentially nomads, not farmers, and certainly not road builders.

>

>> If you want to get an idea of how much forest there still is, take
>> look at Google Earth. What you see in Canada is how it was
>> in the USA before the human population cleared it and planted
>> wheat. Brazil is still being cleared. When you talk about the
>> development of the wheel you are taking the flat surface for it to
>> roll on for granted. The development of the road goes hand-in-glove
>> with the development of the wheel, it is even used for walking.
>> A cart on an unpaved road quickly produces ruts and gets bogged
>> down so without both wheel and road you gain little. Even today
>> the military and the construction industry use tracked vehicles
>> for their tanks and bulldozers, wheels don't work.- Hide quoted text -

>

>> - Show quoted text -

>
> In other words, there is a kind of dynamic reciprocal interaction
> between environmental circumstances and the development of technology:
> environmental context facilitates the development of certain specific
> technologies, which, in turn, modifies environmental context, which
> facilitates the development of other, related and distinct new
> technologies.
>
> Has this process ever been analyzed in detail? It sounds extremely
> interesting, and, also, of some practical significance.
> ===================================
>
> I don't know the answer to that question, certainly I've never made
> such a study, but you seem to have hit the nail on the head.
> From experience I've seen invention at work and it would be a
> serious mistake to assume that our ancestors of 80 or 200
> generations ago (2000 to 5000 or so years) were not as intelligent
> as we are, or as inventive. There is currently a thread running in
> sci.physics on the Antikythera device, and I've studied an
> Egyptian coffin in the British Museum. Guess what? It has mitred
> corners. You need a saw and saw guide to do that, and those
> mummies are wrapped in cloth. You need a loom to make cloth.
> How long has it been since mankind became hairless and needed
> clothing?
> The cathedrals of Europe, the mosques of the Middle East,
> they are a testimony to art, mathematics and creativity.
> Even Stonehenge, which some modern cretins denigrate as a
> place of human sacrifice and pagan worship, is actually a marvel
> as a calendar and a clock. There is a tendency for the more
> recent primitive minds to paint a picture in their own stupid
> image and because an IQ of 100 is "normal" ( and stupid)
> the majority tend to think earlier man was in some way inferior,
> a caveman with a club.
> The British Museum itself is a Greco-Roman temple and
> architecturally no advance whatsoever, and until recent times
> it was impossible to build American style skyscrapers in London
> because they'd sink in the clay. Today that problem has been solved,
> we have the Gherkin.
> http://www.30stmaryaxe.com/index2.asp
> Who could not say this is as beautiful as any pyramid or temple?
> And in typical British understatement, we give it a name from a
> vegetable.
> Television was invented by John Logie Baird in Britain or by
> Philo Taylor Farnsworth in the USA depending on your patriot/
> parochial bias. It is fairly certain that the two were independent
> and there was no collusion between them, and its invention occurred
> simply because it became possible after radio. In any case it was
> perfected by the Japanese who seem to be less inventive but
> better engineers.
> Same with computers and jumbo jets and Concorde and flying
> to the Moon.
> When something is both possible and practical, it will be invented.
>
> While discussing something as primitive as the wheel it would
> be foolish indeed to imagine that someone capable of designing
> and building a birch bark canoe or a bow and arrow would be so
> stupid as to not have thought of it, he just didn't find it practical
> and so he discarded it.
>
> Further thoughts on your idea:
> Northern man lives in the cold. He has to find heat and insulation
> to survive. Three hours out in the snow without it, hypothermia
> and death results.
> Equatorial man can sleep naked under the stars, he needs no heat.
> The Spaniard or the Mexican can sleep after noon, have his siesta,
> knowing that he will not freeze that night. Northern man must stock
> his larder for winter, or die. He must plan for the future. That is
> how intelligence evolves, and intelligence is the adaptation of what
> you already know to different circumstances. Man cannot invent
> television without first inventing radio. Man cannot fly to the Moon
> without first flying at Kitty Hawk in a string kite. It is not really
> surprising to me that the most inventive blood stock is German,
> Russian, British and American. Intelligence and inventiveness
> is subject to evolution. If you need it and don't have it, you die.
> If you don't need it, you procreate.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -