We Rarely Lose Technology (2023)
6 days ago
- #technology
- #history
- #innovation
- Lost technology is a common trope in fiction but rarely matches reality.
- Technology can be lost when knowledge is confined to a single inventor who dies without sharing it, such as Girolamo Segato's petrification technique.
- Military secrets like Greek Fire and Fogbank were lost due to extreme classification and compartmentalization.
- Claims of lost technology often arise from extraordinary skill, like Stradivarius violins or Inca stonework, rather than actual forgotten techniques.
- Mysterious artifacts like the Antikythera mechanism or Baghdad Battery are not lost technologies but rather objects whose uses are unclear.
- Some materials, like Roman concrete or wootz steel, had properties dependent on specific, forgotten processes.
- The extinction of species like silphium or the decline of cultivars like the Montreal melon represent losses of biological, not technological, knowledge.
- Many stories of lost technology, such as Archimedes' heat ray or Tesla's teleforce, are likely hoaxes or exaggerations.
- True loss of technology is rare in large, innovative cultures but can occur in isolated or declining societies.