Eugene Volokh is looking for:
... items that match all of the following conditions, and I'd love some help, if any of you would be kind enough to provide. Which items (products or processes) satisfy all these criteria:He lists a few, and here's two of my own: scissors, and the saddle. Scissors were supposedly invented by Leonardo di Vinci, and until the Sarmatians developed the leather saddle in the 4th century AD animals were ridden bareback or with just a blanket.
1. They were unknown to people in ancient Rome circa 150 B.C.
2. They could be manufactured with then-existing technology and then-available raw materials.
3. They would be at least modestly useful in that era.
4. Even a nontechnically minded person today -- say, a smart 12-year-old -- would know how to make and use them.
5. Their absence would be pretty clearly visible.
Update:
Also:
- Sliced bread (20th century).
- The frisbee (20th century).
- Buttons (13th century).
- The hoisting gear (15th century).
- Copyright (15th century).
- Sliderules (17th century). Most 12-year-olds now can't use one, but my dad could when he was 12.
Re: Frisbee
When did the Greeks invent the discus? Did the Romans know?
Romans had scissors. I've seen them, but they looked more like clippers since they didn't have intersecting blades that pivoted on a pin.
Roman clippers were two blades joined to a curved semi-circular handle as the spring. By squeezing the handle, you caused the two blades to clip across each other.
Telescope
Compass
Microscope
Sextant (sp?)
Possibly a printing press
Samuel: None of those fit the 5 criteria.
Chip: Frisbee, good point. Still, discuses were stone werne't they? I don't imagine they flew very well. Then again, the Romans couldn't have made plastic.
Mark: Maybe they had something similar to scissors then, fair enough. Got a picture?
I suggested the hourglass and the pencil, both circa 1500
I wonder if they could make pencils? Where do they get graphite from? They could make lead pencils, I suppose... they had lead plumbing, after all.
I'd argue against two of them -
The problem with sliced bread is that you really need something to keep the bread from drying out and becoming stale. We have plastic bags and Tupperware today - they had the crust. Less of a problem for trenchers, but sliced bread really depends on food-preservation technology.
As for the slide rule, it depends on knowledge of logarithms, which weren't discovered/invented until the 17th century. I got the impression Eugene was looking for things that could have been developed in ancient Rome, just that they hadn't been.
The modern safety pin might be a better example of what he was looking for.