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Suppose you went to the year 1000 in a time machine, taking along nothing but your bare hands and your mind. What could you teach people to do, that they don't already know, that would advance their civilization or technology?
Anything? What could you show them how to make, or what scientific principle could you describe to them and demonstrate convincingly that it works? Even assuming that they are open to accept your ideas and don't burn you as a heretic.
Your question is deceptively simple. It is difficult to introduce any idea that changes a system. The system has a way of pushing back. It could be being burnt as a witch, being otherwise executed, or just ignored.
The Romans knew how to use waterpower to grind grain and yet it didn't catch on because labor was cheap and people needed work. Steam railways lasted much longer in India for the same reason.
The real question is more like "What idea could be snuck in that would be accepted without getting a person killed?" Filtering water through porous stone or pottery might work. Better stove designs might work. The concept of insulation might work. Using crushed marigolds as insecticide might work.
Do not think for a moment that people from this time period weren't intelligent. They had systems set up that allowed not only survival, but an excess that could be channeled into churches and castles. I'd be looking at what they might teach ME before playing Connecticut Yankee.
My point is this: They could not make a chronograph, because they did not grasp the principle of the escapament. But do you comprehend it well enough that you could have shown it to them?
Could you show them, for example, how to draw wire, and insulate it, and then make a battery, and a light bulb or motor? Could you show them how to make a magnifying glass? Could you tell them how to make steel, or cement? Could you devise refrigeration? Could you demonstrate any medical or surgical procedures. or anaesthetics?
While we take all these technologies for granted, most of us lack the capacity to replicate the technology from our own store of knowledge. People, through mere trial and error, had already developed architectural and agricultural and metallurgical concepts by then, that most individuals remain ignorant of to this day.
I do think I could use the help of existing workmen, and cobble together some pieces of movable type, and show them that.
The bottom line is, if some cataclysm reduced the population of the world to you and 999 other people and no man-made objects or books, how useful would you be in trying to re-start technology? What are the chances that one of those 1,000 would even know how to deliver a baby, or start a fire, or throw a pot, or shape a stone?
Your question is deceptively simple. It is difficult to introduce any idea that changes a system. The system has a way of pushing back. It could be being burnt as a witch, being otherwise executed, or just ignored.
My point is this: They could not make a chronograph, because they did not grasp the principle of the escapament. But do you comprehend it well enough that you could have shown it to them?
Could you show them, for example, how to draw wire, and then make a battery, and a light bulb or motor? Could you show them how to make a magnifying glass? Could you tell them how to make steel, or cement? Could you devise refrigeration? Could you demonstrate any medical or surgical procedures?
While we take all these technologies for granted, most of us lack the capacity to replicate the technology from our own store of knowledge.
Very interesting question. Upon pondering out of all the things I "know" there really is very little that I feel I could demonstrate or replicate in order to convince someone. My knowledge seems only relevant to other people living in the same time.
Of course, that got me thinking more about it and I venture that there are very few people (if any) who actually could go back in time with just themselves and pass on knowledge. Just about everything requires a community. We could take Werner Von Braun and drop him in the 11th century and people won't suddenly be able to build rockets. We couldn't take Oppneheimer and expect them to have nuclear weapons and power. Although there are critical people in terms of a breakthrough, it generally takes teams of people with specialized skills in order to reach the point of making something feasible and assembling all the various parts.
I would amaze them with my skills to set fire to "rocks".
You would now have the source of heat for all other things to follow.
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