Cool quote from Professor Richard Feynman.

[Jehanne]

From his Lectures on Physics:

"From a long view of the history of mankind—seen from, say, ten thousand years from now—there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil War will pale into provincial insignificance in comparison with this important scientific event of the same decade."

[Ranjr]

I hope recent times are remembered for something more thought provoking than an equation.  Less abstract. Not a droll as iron wound with copper, because that's my prediction.  Please remember us for more than metallurgy and turbines.  Speak of our astounding dumbassery.  Club wielding, knuckle draggers that we are.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

‘If I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn’t have been worth a Nobel Prize.’

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

I hope recent times are remembered for something more thought provoking than an equation.  Less abstract. Not a droll as iron wound with copper, because that's my prediction.  Please remember us for more than metallurgy and turbines.  Speak of our astounding dumbassery.  Club wielding, knuckle draggers that we are.

How much of the deepest thoughts of the most profound Paleolithic hunter gatherers philosophers are of even the most infinitesimal consequence to us compare to the fact that one of them invented the making of fire?

[Jehanne]

‘If I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn’t have been worth a Nobel Prize.’

Boru

Some archeologists have written that the time between the invention of the pottery wheel and its rotation by 90 degrees by some unknown individual was around 10,000 years.

[Anomalocaris]

‘If I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn’t have been worth a Nobel Prize.’

Boru

Some archeologists have written that the time between the invention of the pottery wheel and its rotation by 90 degrees by some unknown individual was around 10,000 years.

If that is meant to suggest what is seemingly obvious to us eluded the mesolithic and neolithic people for 10000 years,  then I suspect it is not so simple as that.    i suspect they know just as well as we do that you can make a disk of wood with a axle in the middle and it would save a lot of work to use it to carry load.   but they probably also realize that only works if you have firm flat surfaces on which to roll the wheel.   if you have to carry the wheel part of the time over right ground,  then it makes the entire wheel not worth while.

[Jehanne]

Some archeologists have written that the time between the invention of the pottery wheel and its rotation by 90 degrees by some unknown individual was around 10,000 years.

If that is meant to suggest what is seemingly obvious to us eluded the mesolithic and neolithic people for 10000 years,  then I suspect it is not so simple as that.    i suspect they know just as well as we do that you can make a disk of wood with a axle in the middle and it would save a lot of work to use it to carry load.   but they probably also realize that only works if you have firm flat surfaces on which to roll the wheel.   if you have to carry the wheel part of the time over right ground,  then it makes the entire wheel not worth while.

The obvious did elude our distant ancestors, that's my exact point. Even negative numbers, which are obvious to many early elementary students, appeared thousands of years after the rise of agriculture, invention of bronze & iron, etc.

[Anomalocaris]

A new abstract concept is rather different from the different application of an already implemented concept.

The Inca and their antecedents in the Andes are often invoked as examples to show urbanized culture lineages can endure for thousands of years and acquire great sophistication without ever inventing the wheel, because the great Inca road system, which otherwise rival the Roman road system, was clearly not designed for wheel traffic. But careful examination of Inca artifacts show this was not so. The Inca clearly knew how to make and use the wheel because they installed functional wheels on their children’s toys and animal figurines so these can be pushed along on the ground. So they clearly failed to use the wheel for vehicles and transportation because of reasons other than not knowing how.

[Jehanne]

A new abstract concept is rather different from the different application of an already implemented concept.

The Inca and their antecedents in the Andes are often invoked as examples to show urbanized culture lineages can endure for thousands of years and acquire great sophistication without ever inventing the wheel, because the great Inca road system, which otherwise rival the Roman road system, was clearly not designed for wheel traffic. But careful examination of Inca artifacts show this was not so. The Inca clearly knew how to make and use the wheel because they installed functional wheels on their children’s toys and animal figurines so these can be pushed along on the ground. So they clearly failed to use the wheel for vehicles and transportation because of reasons other than not knowing how.

The Inca were content with most things, just as our Paleolithic & Mesolithic ancestors were content to be hunter gathers for millions of years. My point is that the inventor of the wheeled axle must be regarded as one of the greatest minds of all of human history.