You get into a freak accident.....

Thread Starter

cjdelphi

Joined Mar 26, 2009
272
You get into a freak accident..... you touch something and you get hit with over 100 billion volts or something your body does not burn but it vaporizes without a trace.

Now you find yourself awake and to your surprise you're living in 1665, at least 100 years before anything to do with electricity...

What would you do, and what 1 item if any you would want or need with you to do everything you could possibly want to do in realm of basic electronics.... would you take a soldering iron (but no electric though) how about a voltmeter, something too complex to easily build maybe not (the magnetic field in the wire is repelled by a magnet which is a crude way if you needed a volt/amp meter..

So is there anything you'd take back with you, what and why?...


(as a side curiosity, how much would life of had advanced if we did discover what we did in the late 1800's and the early 1900's most of the
information still stands today, would be 200 years advance us that much more? or rather what would the future be in 200 years from now, just a side thought)
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
You'd be surprised how little you could do, by yourself.

There is a series of books written by Eric Flint, Dave Weber and quite a few other authors, the first book title is 1632. This theme is quite popular in science fiction, and very well done in this series. One of the things I like about it is the town, which was transported in entire to midevil Germany, has to start gearing down their technology. Simple things we take for granted, like insulation for wire (especially magnet wire), isn't that easy if you don't have the tech base. They do have a library, but think about a small town library, it would be full of hints instead of techniques.

There is another concept in SciFi called the Singularity, where the pace of the expansion of knowledge, which is currently growing exponentially, hits the asymptotic part of the curve and becomes something else. I'm not saying this is real, but it is a fun concept.
 
Last edited:

t06afre

Joined May 11, 2009
5,934
Just think about the problem in storing electricity. The Leyden jar, was invented in 1744, and the Voltaic pile come in 1800
 

steveb

Joined Jul 3, 2008
2,436
Now you find yourself awake and to your surprise you're living in 1665, at least 100 years before anything to do with electricity...

What would you do, and what 1 item if any you would want or need with you to do everything you could possibly want to do in realm of basic electronics.... would you take a soldering iron (but no electric though) how about a voltmeter, something too complex to easily build maybe not (the magnetic field in the wire is repelled by a magnet which is a crude way if you needed a volt/amp meter..

So is there anything you'd take back with you, what and why?...
If I found myself in 1665, I would be tempted to publish what I know of, calculus, Newton's scientific works and Maxwell's equations. I would then be known as the greatest scientist of all time. :)

In the end, I hope my ethics would prevent me from doing that. But, I think I would go meet Newton in person, at the very least.

I don't think I'd find doing electricity work very interesting with the limitations back then. There would be no point of experimenting, because I already know the results I would get. And the devices you can make would be limited. I suppose I could develop basic magnetic systems and start a magic act to survive. :p
 

bluebrakes

Joined Oct 17, 2009
252
I would either take the book how stuff works :D (then you can show people how to make stuff)

or a lightbulb...

Because making a basic generator is easy.

Although if you went back in time, are you going to have enough money to buy the materials you need?

Just about everything was a rich man's item.
 

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
First you have to learn the local language. You have no money or recognizable job skills. And you have to avoid being burned for witchcraft. Sounds scary.
 

VoodooMojo

Joined Nov 28, 2009
505
If we started preaching electronics we would probably be thrown into the dungeon for heresy.
I would hope we wouldn't be viewed as the over-unity or perpetual motion people!
 

t06afre

Joined May 11, 2009
5,934
Many strange suggestions here. Like bringing the "Art of electronics" or a big assault rifle (really stupid). If you should bring books it should be about building steam engines and making automated "programable" looms. Those two technologies together could made you very rich in that time period
 

maxpower097

Joined Feb 20, 2009
816
My theory is we basically invented modern electronics in the past 100 years. Think of the benefit of taking a book like AoE back 400 years. By 1705 we might have had cell phones. So the actual immediate benefit would be slim, but the lifetime benefit would be enormous.
 
Top