Hygiene?
This could prevent a lot of plagues... gosh imagine Europe without black death
Hygiene?
I have a soft spot for Newton's Radio.
I'd love to hear more about optics. Link to the thread, or repeat some of that stuff here?
Would terraforming be possible? I've heard there were attempts made in the past.
I mean like using Norias to grow things where one cannot,use animal labour to do larger landscape projects and like that.Not in the sense most would use the word terraforming, but humans consciously or unconsciously altering their environment has been a thing since humans evolved, like the extensive use of fire for hunting which had long term environmental consequences and probably helped kill the ice age megafauna.
But maintenance and expansion of Roman forestry would be very important in most of the Mediterranean.
Would terraforming be possible? I've heard there were attempts made in the past.
On a larger scale. Animals put to use for large transportation,Norias used in the deserts,Soil being terraformed to create new fields,canals built,etc.Irrigation? Check.
Swamp draining? Check.
Land clearing? Check.
Slope terracing? Check.
What do you have in mind as terraforming?
*library employee eye-twitch*What else do you think could've been simple but interesting?
Maybe some sort of earleir alternate to the Dewey Decibil System
It's one of the technological clichés of Roman agriculture that horse collars of Antiquity were inefficient and that heavy plough is some sort of technological super-discoveriesBasically XIXth and XXth reconstitution were made with the idea that for literraly centuries Romans went with the most inefficient and unlikely models of harnessing animal power until everyone got an epiphany : I'm sure you see the problem there : Ancient Harness Systems is an interesting source if you're interested.The animal collar would change things significantly. It would allow animals to haul more weight and also to draw better ploughs.
That said, earlier development and use of codex instead of volumen (one nook that you read yourself, contrary to tens of rolls of papers you were read to by someone else) would certainly be as a change in intellectual and scholarly habits than IOTL : more facilities to borrow or access sources, silent (possibly more focusing) study, easier to store, etc.I don't think an improved system of categorisation would help much at a time when twenty books would be considered a very respectable collection.
The ancient Romans had a kind of visual telegraph, they used flag signals with differently coloured flags held in the left and right hand and either raised or not to code letters to convey messages from one watch tower to another and to cavalry forts along the limes and Hadrian's wall.Visual telegraph. Roman army would have the incentive to build a network all across Europe. Even if it could only be used for official communication it would have a massive impact.
And it's a prerequisite for the invention of the printing press. As long as you have no cheap material to print on the purpose of the printing press, i.e. to reproduce written sources cheaply, kind of defeats itself and literally no one is going to invest to invent it. It is no coincidence that IOTL Gutenberg invented the printing press merely a few decades after paper started to be produced locally and no longer had to be purchased from the Venetians at cutthroat prices.This! Paper is a hundred times more necessary to the spread of information than the printing press.