Talk:Timeline of motor and engine technology/Archive 1

Motor and Engine Technology is Older than this Timeline Indicates

To: Physicists and Engineers

FYI: History today is being revised ... and fast. As historians learn more, History becomes refined more. This timeline may be receiving some revision in the near future. Why?

1. Seafaring is older than the following timeline indicates.

Quoting Timeline of transportation technology, we have...

Timeline of transportation technology

• 3500 BC - Wheeled carts are invented
• 3500 BC - River boats are invented

However, quoting Lothal, we have...

"In Lothal, there is secondary evidence of sea-going craft. Archaeologists have discovered a massive, dredged canal and docking facility at this coastal city.... with archaeological, carbon-dating methods and astronomical data using sophisticated methods that suggest that it might be the oldest harbor to be built on Earth. Their deductions, are that Lothal was built around 6000 BC, 3000 years earlier than any other known ancient river valley civilisation."

Along similar lines, refer now to History of Ancient Egypt:

"Included in the nomes of ancient Egypt are names associated with harpoons. Actual harpoons dating to 3000 BC have been found in West Africa, indicating ancient seafaring as early. See West Africa: History."

Contradictory? Yes. Clearly so.

Now please carefully examine Advanced Prehistoric Ships and Maritime archaeology. You should then be able to formulate the gist of the idea being driven at here.

2. Timeline of mathematics

Algebra, Geometry, Golden Ratio, Linear Equations (including 2nd order), Cotangent-analog, Arithmetic series, Geometric series ... all around 2000 BC?

Quoting Moscow and Rhind Mathematical Papyri:

"The solution to the 14th problem has been used to argue that the Egyptians had more technical knowledge than usually assumed. This would help to explain how they could build the Great Pyramid of Giza, since it is not clear how it could be constructed, in any way, in a reasonable time frame without mechanical help."

"... the 2/n table of the Rhind Papyrus, which dates from more than a thousand years before Pythagoras, seems to show an awareness of prime and composite numbers, a crude version of the 'Sieve of Eratosthenes,' a knowledge of the arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic means, and of the 'perfectness' of the number 6. This all seems to suggest a greater number-theoretic sophistication than is generally credited to the ancient Egyptians."(The Rhind Papyrus 2/N Table)

Now referencing "209.150.67.45" at Talk:0 (number):

If it took the Greeks only a few hundred years, why would it take Egypt several millennia, facing the fact that the Greeks studied mathematics in Egypt? Please refer to the following quote:

"...there must have been much more to Egyptian mathematics. We know that Thales, Pythagoras and others visited Egypt to study. If there were only applied arithmetic methods as we have seen in the papyri, the trip would have had little value. But where are the records of achievement? Very likely, the mathematics extant was absorbed into the body of Greek mathematics -- in an age where new and better works completely displaced the old, and in this case the old works written in hieroglypics. Additionally, the Alexandrian library, one place where ancient Egyptian mathematical works may have been preserved, was destroyed by about 400 CE." [1]

Please see Alphabet. There you will learn that History is being rewritten as we speak. If you open a 2004 Merriam-Webster Dictionary [2], for example, you will find a history of the Latin Alphabet very much different from what is posted in Wikipedia....

3. Trying to solve the "Great Pyramid of Giza Puzzle" yields only a few logical conclusions.

Ancient Egyptian peoples were already constructing large buildings in 6000 BC (ref. History of Ancient Egypt).

Reading Great Pyramid of Giza (bottom of page), there is evidence of crane-use on the heaviest, several ton stone blocks ... holes bored on opposite faces. Additionally it has been pointed out that a sort of ancient "train and/or railway system" would have been required to carry these several ton stone blocks over the distance of 15-20 miles from the nearest ancient stone quarry. (Worthy of mention here is that the bulk of this distance might have been traversed by river [because particular varieties of sandstone actually float]. Nevertheless, the aforementioned still holds for the remainder of travel on land as well as, primarily, the distance required to raise tons and tons of stone 40 stories up in the air.)

Others are instead claiming advanced alchemy: Geopolymer Theory.

The problem is that there are just too many stone blocks in it -- some weighing several tons -- to explain, in any modern mathematical sense, how it could have feasibly been constructed in a reasonable time frame without mechanical means.

Confusion abounds to explain the construction of this massive monument around 2700 BC ... unless the ancient Egyptians really did have an ancient crane but kept its technology hidden from the general population. This seems to be the only logical conclusion.

4. Ancient Egypt applied this new motor technology to seafaring???

Maybe ... 1000 years later??? Modern calculations are not yielding any better conclusions.

We owe the Scientific Method to the ancient Egyptians. Then the ancient Indus Valley Civilization-peoples traded with them as early as 4000 BC to 3000 BC (ref. Maritime archaeology).

5. Documented Contradiction???

Finally, worthy to point out here is the following subtle contradiction:

Despite all the ancient seafaring going on (referenced and/or linked to above), our Roman ancestors have left behind for us documents showing...

...because of the extremely high rate of expected wrecks (Romans calculated that at least 30% of cargo would have been lost by storms or pirate assaults), the traffic was proportionally (or perhaps more) increased.... (Maritime archaeology)

If there were a 30% chance of losing your life on a shipping expedition, would you willfully captain the ship? Or do you suspect that perhaps the Roman leadership was clandestinely sending ships to other regions of the world? ...but why would they be so motivated to do this?

Recalling the apparent confidence of Christopher Columbus, Charles Darwin, and so many others to journey far, far distances over the oceans time and time and time again ... without leaving behind any sort of documented "fear for life" leaves sufficient grounds to suspect that not only might have ancient Egypt's technological feats been kept secret from the general population by their pharoah but also by all the Roman Kings who succeeded them ... and their successors as well.

-- Roylee