pRE-FLOOD PEOPLE were techologically advanced! (page 2)

Midget-Sasquatch

Mary

Electroplating is a nifty app and I think its possible. But then we haven't seen any real evidence of this technique being used back then, or even carried forward through the ages. Its tantalizing but I'm wondering if we're just projecting too much of our own knowledge and techniques onto less informed people (albeit just as ingenious as any of our brightest today)

Incense_and_Peppermints

Why didn't the Romans invent Photography?

Or how to bend nature to your will

The word photography comes from the Greek "photos", meaning light, and "graphos" meaning drawing, but the ancient Greeks didn't invent photography. The word camer a comes from the Latin "camera", meaning room, and "obscura", meaning dark. It's not surprising the Ancient Greeks didn't invent photography, after all, they never liked to get their hands dirty, but the Romans, who would have been at home in the "Dark Room", could have invented photography, but never did. Why?

Nowadays, most people take photographs. Remove the modern cameras and film, and many homes still contain the things needed to produce a photograph, things which the Romans could have had access to as well.

What do we need to produce photographs?

A dark room or box
Lots of light
Something which is sensitive to light
A way to focus the light
Chemicals that will reveal and fix the image

Until the recent development of digital cameras, most photography involved the use of films coated with various light sensitive compounds of silver. The sensitivity of certain silver salts to light was known from about 1727, when Johann Heinrich Schulze published his findings in the Nuremburg Academy of Natural Philosophers. But many natural things are sensitive to light. Long ago people noticed the effect of light on green plants, or how it made coloured fabrics fade. It is the effect of light on plants that makes Roman Photography possible.

This is what you need

One healthy geranium plant with large leaves
A dark room or large box
A slide projector
A slide of a high contrast negative image
Methylated spirits or other strong alcohol
Tincture of Iodine from a pharmnacist
Various pots, jars, trays and small boxes

How it all works

The chlorophyll in healthy green leaves captures light and uses its energy to join together carbon dioxide and water. The result is the organic compound we call starch. It is the basis of much of the food we eat. Starch is white, but if you drop a small amount of a solution of iodine on it, the starch turns black. So that's it really. All you have to do is get a plant to produce lots of starch in the right place, then stain the starch with iodine. Don't let a few details prevent you starting straight away.

Keep the geranium in a dark room or box for two days. During this time the plant will use up all the existing starch in the leaves. Snip off one leaf, leaving plenty of stalk attached. Fix the leaf flat against the outside wall of a small box, gently push the stalk through a hole in the box.

Arrange for the cut end of the stalk to rest in a dish of water, to keep the leaf fresh. You can use sticky tape to keep the leaf reasonably flat. In a dimly lit room project a small but very bright image onto the leaf. Leave it to expose for about four or five hours, depending on the brightness of the projected image. After the exposure you should be able to see the effect of the light on the leaf, in the form of a faint, pearly image.

Now comes the violent bit. You have to kill the leaf, for the good of your art, you understand. Drop it in boiling hot water. After a minute or two, remove the now very limp leaf and place it in a bowl of cold water. Allow the leaf to fan out to a mere remnant of its former self. It should look like a fragile translucent pale brown thing, floating on the water.

Place a few drops of Tincture of Iodine on the surface of the leaf; after twenty or thirty seconds rock the bowl gently to spread the iodine. Slowly the positive image should appear, your first, and possibly last, photo on a geranium leaf. You have to keep the leaf in water, and after a few hours the image may fade, but you can restore it any time with a little more iodine.

Our portrait of a man has come out slightly dark, but hey - this is experimental science! If you know of any improveents to this method, we would be very pleased to hear about them.

Elsewhere

Thats awsome!!!

*** Going out to buy a geranium ***

SixofNine

: The word camera comes from the Latin "camera", meaning room, and "obscura", meaning dark.

heh. I think they meant "camera obscura", but it's a funny sentence even then.

upside/down

I&P- as regard the photograph, they very well could have had them (photography is one of my passions). The problem is even the best photos taken today will not last (100years tops). So that could explain why we see little to no evidence.

Here's some food for thought about the ancients being "smarter" than us (ME!).

If "God" were to destroy humanity in one fell swoop and preserve ME alone alive (with some women at the same "talent" level as me) , and it was left to ME, the race of mankind that would proceed from MY loins would be a sorry lot indeed. You could kiss all forms of art good-bye. Music would become extinct. The building trades would suffer a set back to the stone age (I'd probably just go back to a cave). Most things mechanical - forget about it. Electricity- I'd just electrocute myself. Mathematics would be forgotten.Sea travel would cease (I get seasick)Poetry- gone.While "God" made me with the ability to admire and enjoy all these things- I'm not good at it. I usually have to be content enjoying other peoples talents in these areas.

What I can do.... Hunt, fish, ride a horse, photography (if I've got the gear), cook (I'm a GOOD cook), have lots of sex, tell jokes.

I just realized I have the qualifications of a caveman!

How could the ancients be less "talented" than me... I don't think so. Lucky for humanity my gene pool is small.

u/d

Incense_and_Peppermints

Thats awsome!!!
*** Going out to buy a geranium ***

isn't that cool? geraniums are in season now... (out here, anyway). it's truly amazing what Man can do with the simplest of tools, and inspired by his inquisitive nature and his imagination...

SixofNine

:it's truly amazing what Man can do with the simplest of tools, and inspired by his inquisitive nature and his imagination...

Yeah, I suppose. But I think it worth noting two things in that regard a) the "simplest of tools" often aren't all that simple when you think about what goes into the history of all the things involved in making that "simple" tool, and b) the flower photograph is not done with "simple" tools at all, it's done with very advanced 20 century tools.

BrendaCloutier

The Shroud of Turin? Come on. That's only 2,000 years old. The flood you're speaking of was 5,000 years ago. If you're going to bring up a story from the Bible, keep with biblical history, ok?

Besides, "The Flood" was just a local event. Catastrophic in proportions as was the Great Tsunami in the Indian Ocean with the ripples encircling the globe, but the catastrophy was still localized to the shores surrounding the Indian Ocean and the islands. In many cases, only parts of island shores.

As far as technology, aluminum was discovered originally by the chinese.

jeanniebeanz

they have discovered all kinds of objects, suggesting that pre-flood people were almost as advanced as modern people.

I may have this wrong, but didn't the jw's state that God confused the languages at Nimrod's time because if he didn't there would not be anything that the people would not be capable of, and was that not just a few years after the 'flood'?

That being the case, a battery is no big deal. LOL

J

City Fan

I thought the Shroud of Turin had been carbon dated to medieval times circa 1350 AD?

pRE-FLOOD PEOPLE were techologically advanced!

Why didn't the Romans invent Photography?

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