What Invention or Discovery Happened Oddly Late or Early?

Oh--steam warships mainly needed to wait for the propellor. Side wheels are very vulnerable. Could the screw propeller show up a bit earlier? It wouldn't be much earlier; it's useless without a source of power.

Side wheels powered by animals or humans have been in existence a very long time. Perhaps someone thinks of the screw rather than the wheel. The former is more efficient, whatever power source used.

I'd second this, but "neolithic" might be a little early. There are those who speculate the the Nasca culture in South America may have had manned hot-air balloons to see their large markings from the air, but geometry is probably easier, huh?

Seriously, though, it is amazing that nobody thought to play around with the fact that hot air from a fire causes ash and other objects to rise. It is surprising that this innovation did not come much earlier - even if it was used only for displays and other events - somewhat like fireworks.

But it would take many major industrial innovations to turn this into a reliable flying machine

Hot air balloons did exist in China as an illumination tool. But apparently no one thought to put a man in it.

As far as flying is concerned, what about paragliders? Very simple, and at the same time a very recent invention.
 
Not just semaphores but the idea of a linked group of stations in line of sight. They had messengers that rode between points with messages and had the idea of reflected light from a mirror for signaling, all they needed was the idea of stations using the semaphore in line of sight to transmit messages.
When I say semaphore I include both the use of flags, moving arms, and light to transmit the messages.
Yeah, a working semaphore system could have been invented way early and had revolutionary effects on the ability to manage a large Empire.
 
Balloons were used in the ACW for observation - I don't know how much of a difference they made, but one assumes it was sufficient to go to the expense of setting them up. They were tethered of course.

Oh, and I read about some woman that Napoleon was going to charge with creating a balloon corps for his invasion of England, but I've forgotten her name.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
I've often wondered if any humans invented or discovered something way too early, all things considered. Penicillin is something that some people think was discovered later than it should have been.

Any thoughts on what invention or discovery seems, looking back, to not have happened exactly at the "right time"?

To qwibble with the OP, whilst penicillin could have been found much earlier, producing it on an industrial scale and making a difference to health required a whole raft of other 20th century advances like x-rays, trait screening and fluid culturing to accomplish and is pretty hard to move forward.
 
Thucydides came up with the idea of cantagion but it took until the 16th century for someone else to realise epidemic disease spread from person to person, not from some poison in the air (miasma. Only then did the idea take off.

It really wasn't rocket science - it just took a clever person in the middle of an epidemic to realise that doctors and carers caught the disease more than those who kept themselves to themselves.
 
Balloons were used in the ACW for observation - I don't know how much of a difference they made, but one assumes it was sufficient to go to the expense of setting them up. They were tethered of course.

Oh, and I read about some woman that Napoleon was going to charge with creating a balloon corps for his invasion of England, but I've forgotten her name.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
There's also the French Aerostatic Corps set up during the early years of the French Revolution.
 
To qwibble with the OP, whilst penicillin could have been found much earlier, producing it on an industrial scale and making a difference to health required a whole raft of other 20th century advances like x-rays, trait screening and fluid culturing to accomplish and is pretty hard to move forward.

Why x-rays? Genuinely curious here, I know they're useful for seeing inside the body and all that, but I wouldn't have thought of them as being necessary for industrial penicillin.

Also, even if it's only present in small quantities, it could make quite a big difference, eg. by keeping kings and leaders who would otherwise die alive.
 
Top