If I could go back in time my contribution would be electric motors/dynamos. I’d also teach basic battery technology, but with basic motors and wiring you can drastically jumpstart anywhere in the Eastern hemisphere starting really fucking early. I’m talking shitty transports in early Rome and streetcars in 11th century China.
You get massive labor saving devices early on and the basics to move forward and invest in more metallurgy.
But most importantly I understand how they work, how to demonstrate their usefulness, how to build them from ancient materials, and how to explain exactly why they work. Only problem is I won’t speak the language and Romans ain’t listening to a galla explaining engineering.
Just be aware that precision metalworking wasn’t invented until the renaissance, so you might need to invent that first or your motors will wobble badly.
Edit: that might have even been the industrial age instead of the renaissance. It might have been what really kicked off the industrial age, though the invention itself was for more reliable guns iirc.
I’d invite you to watch a bit of the YouTube channel “Clickspring” and ask if you’d like to revise your statement. 🙂 As a spoiler, he starts off with a blank desk, builds a lathe, and then an entire antikythera mechanism - by hand, using essentially bronze-age technology. And, he does that while making it look so very mesmerising and elegant. Time well wasted!
Yeah, I’ll check that out… I was thinking that primitive builder guy would do well going to the past but I wasn’t sure how much he could teach people, so it’s cool to hear about a someone doing higher tech from scratch.
Also, that ancient puzzle box/lunar calendar/whatever it was is a counter example showing that some artisans were capable of precision work. The industrial revolution might have been more about scaling precision work to mass production levels. Like adopting standard units of measurement was a big part of it, which isn’t really technology but just getting everyone on the same page. Before that, a foot could have a different length depending on where you were, if that region even had a reliable and reproducible definition for what a foot was exactly.
Lodestone carved into a cylinder in a wooden housing with copper wire coiled around it. Batteries would be copper and zinc bar in vinegar in a clay pot that holds them apart from each other. It isn’t much but it’s enough to start moving towards water wheels
If I could go back in time my contribution would be electric motors/dynamos. I’d also teach basic battery technology, but with basic motors and wiring you can drastically jumpstart anywhere in the Eastern hemisphere starting really fucking early. I’m talking shitty transports in early Rome and streetcars in 11th century China.
You get massive labor saving devices early on and the basics to move forward and invest in more metallurgy.
But most importantly I understand how they work, how to demonstrate their usefulness, how to build them from ancient materials, and how to explain exactly why they work. Only problem is I won’t speak the language and Romans ain’t listening to a galla explaining engineering.
Just be aware that precision metalworking wasn’t invented until the renaissance, so you might need to invent that first or your motors will wobble badly.
Edit: that might have even been the industrial age instead of the renaissance. It might have been what really kicked off the industrial age, though the invention itself was for more reliable guns iirc.
I’d invite you to watch a bit of the YouTube channel “Clickspring” and ask if you’d like to revise your statement. 🙂 As a spoiler, he starts off with a blank desk, builds a lathe, and then an entire antikythera mechanism - by hand, using essentially bronze-age technology. And, he does that while making it look so very mesmerising and elegant. Time well wasted!
Yeah, I’ll check that out… I was thinking that primitive builder guy would do well going to the past but I wasn’t sure how much he could teach people, so it’s cool to hear about a someone doing higher tech from scratch.
Also, that ancient puzzle box/lunar calendar/whatever it was is a counter example showing that some artisans were capable of precision work. The industrial revolution might have been more about scaling precision work to mass production levels. Like adopting standard units of measurement was a big part of it, which isn’t really technology but just getting everyone on the same page. Before that, a foot could have a different length depending on where you were, if that region even had a reliable and reproducible definition for what a foot was exactly.
How to you make electrical motors and batteries from ancient technology and raw materials?
Lodestone carved into a cylinder in a wooden housing with copper wire coiled around it. Batteries would be copper and zinc bar in vinegar in a clay pot that holds them apart from each other. It isn’t much but it’s enough to start moving towards water wheels
Can you make copper wire and zinc bars?
No, but if I’m in a time and place with writing someone there can, and if not I guess I’m teaching writing
Ez pz
Where do you get the electricity for your motors?