Lost Technology
I find lost or suppressed technology fascinating, it just makes me think how different our world would be if these innovations would have been rescued from fate.
The invention of flexible glass was suppressed by the Roman emperor Tiberius. A citizen invented glass that would only dent when dropped and could be hammered back into shape. Tiberius asked if anyone else knew about this invention? The inventor said no? Tiberius ordered him to be executed as he feared the flexible glass would undermine the price of gold in the empire.
The Romans also used a concrete that healed itself, which is why so many Roman buildings are still standing today. It was made from volcanic rock, which provided its strength. Its formula has only been rediscovered in the last 10 years... imagine how this could have changed history!
Religious attitudes in the middle ages could have promoted a further spread of technology earlier. Islam promoted scientific study and medicinal study and were further ahead in technological progress than Europe, hence the ottoman empires adoption of firearmss earlier than Europe.
I am Catholic, but I can’t help thinking what progress was delayed because of most religions opposition to scientific exploration at the time, people who were curious about Science were labeled as heretics.
Davinci developed ‘automata’, primitive robots that used cogs and levers to perform a movement. This development of mechanics could haveof been researched on a larger scale and applied to industry to create machines.
In addition, Davinci created many weapon concepts, such as the tank, a glider, a multi barreled cannon, a giant ballista, and a controlled blade defense system that spun around and decapitated intruders if they tried to attack city walls.
Davinci did these blue prints to get funding from the miltaries at the time so he could continue his art. He hated war and conflict, in a lot of ways it’s a good thing none of these inventions where built and deployed on a large scale, they could have rewrote history and promoted a lot more war.
Nikola Tesla was one of the most underrated scientists of 20th century. He created the superior AC current that powers our world and he also invented wireless electricity in the early 20th century, which could power anything around the world by using the ionosphere.
The potential that sort of technology could yield is obvious and it would have catapulted the 20th century into the future. JP Morgan financed Teslas development of Wardenclyffe tower, a tower designed to pull this electricity from the ionosphere. JP Morgan realized anyone would be able to access this power and it would be free, he immediately dropped support for Tesla. Teslas tower was never finished, but it was supposed to look like this:
Tesla had a dream to light up the world and give everyone an innovation as a gift to humanity, which was crushed by the very symbol of greed, JP Morgan.
Tesla also created a ‘death ray’ said to have the capability to destroy over 1000 aircraft in one blast. It was a particle beam weapon, and Tesla knew how devastating it’s power could be in the wrong hands. He gave a fraction of the blueprints to England, Russia, and America, so no great power could have an overwhelming advantage over anyone in the world and they would have to work together if they ever wanted to build the full weapon.
His papers were declassified recently and a particle beam weapon has been developed by the US recently, Russia also had programs to test these weapons, it has been made close to 80 years after it was invented.
This weapon could have been a game changer for the allies during WW2, however Tesla died a few years before WW2 and tensions between Russia and the allies was high.
A weapon like this if fully developed could have changed the cold war and emboldened nations to fire nukes off, as a particle beam weapon like this would have been a reliable insurance. The country with the highest number of these weapons would have a shield and a sword to escalate the cold war into a hot one.
Tesla was ahead of his time a foresaw the potential risks and only after the Soviet Union fell could a weapon like this become reality.
The post was inspired by my answer on quora- i wanted to share it with my fellow steemians, as i put a lot of effort into researching this at the time.