[steady drum beat]
Sometimes it's hard to imagine a time before
electricity and gadgets like TVs, cell phones,
or even radios.
So it can be easy to forget the incredible
technology that was invented long before modern
times.
In this Sci-5, we go all the way back to ancient
civilizations to explore some of the fascinating
advanced inventions that were already in use.
Before we get into it, if you find yourself
enjoying this video, give it a thumbs up and
hit subscribe!
Number five. Greek Fire.
Greek Fire, which has also been known by names
such as sea fire, war fire and
liquid fire, is credited as the reason
behind many Byzantine military victories.
Perhaps the most important is the salvation
of Constantinople from two Arab sieges, which
secured the Empire's survival.
For those who are not completely familiar
with the Byzantine Empire, it was a large
and powerful civilization that was founded as a New Rome by Roman Emperor Constantine I
on the site of the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium.
It can be traced back to 330 AD
and didn’t dissolve until 1453.
In 672, the empire developed a game-changing
weapon for their military forces.
This was the Greek Fire.
A liquid combustible compound
that could be used in flame-throwing devices to set fire to enemies.
Incredibly, the compound ignited on contact with water and would continue to burn on the
surface, which made it extremely useful for
their naval fleets.
The Empire developed projectors that would
fire the liquid through a tube, as well as
pressurized nozzles that resemble modern-day
flamethrowers which could be directed to project
the chemical liquid onto a chosen enemy and they even developed grenades containing the liquid.
The Byzantine princess and scholar, Anna Komnene gave this account on the description of a projector:
“on the prow of each ship he had a head
fixed of a lion or other land-animal, made
in brass or iron with the mouth open and then
gilded over so that their mere aspect was terrifying.
And the fire which was to be directed against
the enemy through tubes he made to pass through
the mouths of the beasts so that it seemed
as if the lions and the other similar animals
were vomiting the fire.
The weapon made quite an impact on enemy civilizations,
to the point where they began to try to replicate it.
Around 812, Bulgars managed to steal several
siphons of the liquid itself, and in an 827
battle with the Arabs, the enemy was able
to capture at least one intact ship that had
the Greek Fire.
But even with the weapon in their hands, the perfect formula
was a mystery to all but the Byzantines.
The formula, of course, was a very closely
guarded secret of the empire.
In his book De Administrando Imperio, Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos
warns his son never to reveal the secret by
saying it was, "shown and revealed by an angel
to the great and holy first Christian Emperor Constantine," and that the angel bound him,
"not to prepare this fire but for Christians,
and only in the imperial city."
The Greek Fire is continuously mentioned in
Byzantine battles up until around 1200.
After that, mentions patter out of history.
This is thought to be due to the general disarmament of the Empire,
or perhaps the loss of a crucial ingredient.
The ingredients have long been debated, but it seems that the secret has gone with the Empire itself.
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Number four. Robot Band.
With this entry, it seems that robots have
been taking over human jobs long before the industrial revolution, or even electricity itself.
Ismail al-Jazari was a Muslim inventor, mathematician,
and scholar in the Islamic Golden Age.
The age itself dates from about the 8th century
to the 14th century, Al-Jazari was alive between
1136 and 1206.
During his lifespan, he became an incredibly
successful scientist and inventor and his
work on automata was even said to have influenced
the famous Leonardo da Vinci.
In this specific project, Al-Jazari mixed
art and science to create the perfect entertainment
for a party, a robotic band.
By using hydraulic switching and other techniques
which he wrote about in his most famous work,
The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical
Devices, he was able to create programmable
robot musicians.
The entire invention was a boat that featured
four humanoid automata that floated on the
water while playing music to entertain the
guests at royal parties.
Robotics expert Noel Sharkey says he was able
to produce a possible replica of the device,
but scientists still aren’t completely sure
how al-Jazari did it.
Sharkey says in his version, the drum machine
was programmable by means of moving pegs that
would bump into small levers.
The drums could play to different rhythms
and patterns as the pegs were moved around.
Because of this, Sharkey argues that this
invention was perhaps one of the earliest
forms of programmable automata.
Al-Jazari also had some other notable inventions
when it comes to automata.
Another one I thought worth mentioning was
a female humanoid automaton that could serve
drinks, essentially an ancient robotic bartender.
Drinks would be filled by a reservoir that
dips into a bucket, and then into a cup.
After the cup is filled, the waitress would
appear out of the automatic door serving the drink.
Al-Jazari was an incredible inventor and well
ahead of his time.
If these concepts interest you, I highly recommend
reading more about him.
Number three. The Lycurgus Cup.
This incredible and beautiful invention is
from the 4th century.
Extremely rare, the cup has been described
as "the most spectacular glass of the period,
fittingly decorated, which we know to have
existed,” and for good reason.
This decorative Roman cup was made from a
special type of glass that shows different
colours depending on the direction of the light.
If light is passing from the front of the
cup, it will illuminate green.
When in the reverse, it will illuminate red.
The glass used is called Dichroic glass.
The modern form used today was developed as
a result of research done by NASA, which only
makes the 4th-century usage even more incredible.
Dichroic glass is made by creating glass with
nanoparticles of gold and silver dispersed
throughout the material.
Researchers still do not know the process
used by the Romans and believe the only way
they could have developed such material is
by accident.
Many believe a batch of glass contaminated
with silver and gold dust led the Romans to
the invention.
In fact, the traces for the effect need to
be so small, researches ponder whether the
Romans knew what happened at all and if the
cup itself was a complete accident.
But even though the cup is extremely rare,
there are other examples throughout history of
similar objects, so how could they not have known?
Well, the answer is as simple as it can get.
The mistake miraculously happened multiple times.
The other surviving objects with the effect
of the dichroic glass vary in their two colours,
which could prove they couldn’t really hone
the discovery they had made.
It would also explain why the objects are
so rare.
Corning Glassworks worked to recreate the
"Lycurgus effect", which is when the green
and red colours occur.
They found that the particles involved are
only about 70 nanometers across, and cannot
be seen with a regular microscope, therefore
a transmission electron microscope is necessary.
So if it wasn’t an accident, the Romans
were clearly far, far ahead of their time.
But this isn’t the only thing that makes
this cup so fascinating to historians.
It is also the only well-preserved physical
example of a cage-cup.
A cage-cup is made when the glass used is
cut and ground back to create an exterior design.
Usually, the designs are geometric abstract
designs, but this one is special in that it
features the mythical King Lycurgus, for whom
the cup is named after.
It currently sits in the British Museum.
Number two. Greek Programmable Robots.
In 1550, the famous art historian Giorgio Vasari
wrote in his book Lives of the Most
Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
of an encounter he had with Leonardo da Vinci.
He said, quote, “When Leonardo was at Milan
the King of France came there and desired
him to do something curious; accordingly he
made a lion whose chest opened after he had
walked a few steps, discovering himself to
be full of lilies."
To more modern readers this seemed incredible,
and very unexplainable.
Even for da Vinci, this was a very complicated
machine that was reported.
It wasn’t until 2000 when US robotics expert
Mark Rosheim put the pieces together and was
able to explain it.
In his research, Rosheim found that lion was
powered by a self-propelled cart that appeared
in da Vinci's famous Codex Atlanticus.
The cart was powered by coiled springs that
even had brakes and steering capabilities.
But despite its great potential, it seemed
to have been designed mainly
for theatrical purposes.
Regardless of its use, it was so incredibly
ahead of its time that it was not replicated
until 2006 by Italy’s Institute and Museum
of the History of Science in Florence.
Experts have actually compared the built machine
to the Mars Land Rover.
Now, obviously da Vinci was not from Ancient
Greece, so where did I get that headline?
A researcher on the science website New Scientist
decided to go back even further than the 1500s
to see if it was possible that da Vinci got
his inspiration from a previous invention,
and whether or not we are able to connect
da Vinci to the Ancient Greeks here, he did
find a strikingly similar invention that predates
da Vinci by about 1500 years.
The Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria
researched and wrote about many things on
the topic of hydraulics, pneumatics, other
mechanics and much more.
In his writings, it also seems he had already
invented a programmable cart very similar
to that of da Vinci’s.
This cart was made of three wheels and was
propelled by a falling weight.
But it was different from da Vinci’s in
that it was programmable by means of string
essentially.
Depending on the complex arrangement of the
string wrapped around different pegs on the
device’s base, you could have the cart move
forward, turn, stop, and move backwards in
whichever pattern you wanted.
Truly a programmable machine way ahead of
its time.
Number one.
The Antikythera Mechanism.
In 1901, divers were retrieving artifacts
off of Point Glyphadia on the Greek island
of Antikythera from a site deemed
the Antikythera Shipwreck.
The wreck contained many large artifacts such
as statues of bronze and marble, jewelry,
pottery, coins, and other interesting pieces
of history from the ancient Greeks.
Among those pieces of history, was a strange
lump of bronze and wood that didn’t seem
to resemble much.
All of the artifacts were brought to the National
Museum of Archaeology in Athens to be stored
and analyzed, but the large lump of wood and
bronze was seen as too confusing and wrecked
to be worthwhile and researchers promptly began
assembling statues and studying other objects.
About a year later, an archeologist noticed
that the lump featured gears and looked to
be a complex mechanism tied to astronomy.
But other scientists claimed that the idea
was too complex, as the wreck and its artifacts
were traced back to first-century BC.
It wasn’t until nearly fifty years later
that the strange object
was given the attention it deserved.
In 1951, British science historian and Yale
University Professor, Derek J. de Solla Price
developed an interest in the object.
By 1974, he and a Greek nuclear physicist
created x-ray and gamma-ray images of the
82 pieces and published a 70-page report on their findings.
It was discovered to be an advanced astronomical
computer that featured 37 gears and supposedly
tracked the cycles of the Moon and the Sun
through the zodiac.
It could in turn predict eclipses, the locations
of the five planets that were known at the
time, and even follow the irregular orbit
of the Moon.
The writings on the machine were found to
be Greek, but the calendar it followed was
actually the Sothic Egyptian calendar.
The computer system was incredibly complex
for its time, and its origins are still debated,
with some researchers even linking it to the
school of Archimedes.
Archimedes, of course, is the famous Greek
mathematician known for many things, among
them the discovery of pi.
There are many estimations as to the exact
time the machine is from, as its erosion makes
it hard to pinpoint.
Most guesses land between 205 BC and 87 BC.
Regardless, the machine is widely referred
to as the first known analog computer.
Thanks to intense research, it has now been
replicated many times, in fact, you can buy
your own exact replica directly from the Museum
of ancient Greek technology’s website.
Thank you for checking out this Sci Five.
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