I want to go back in time with knowledge and tech and be liie i'm a wizard.
this post was submitted on 02 May 2026
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More likely: who is that crazy person wearing strange clothing and speaking some unintelligible language.
Even if you got the clothing right and knew a lot of languages, you'd be in trouble. Languages drift. Just try reading English from a few hundred years ago and it's hard to understand.
And if you got the clothing right and knew the language the way it was spoken at the time, there are still barriers. You probably wouldn't have the behaviour right for that time. You wouldn't say the right thing if someone sneezed. You wouldn't give the right courtesies to the right people at the right moment. Basically, unless you were in a huge city you'd always stand out as the foreigner, at best. In a big city, they might be used to foreigners, but you might stand out if you had anything unusual about your body, including basic dental work.
You'd also be the time travelling version of Typhoid Mary. Imagine something like when the Conquistadors stepped into the Americas. Suddenly everybody around you is exposed to the diseases you carry but you're immune to. They might not have disease theory, but they might notice that the people getting sick are the ones who were closest to the outsider.
Copper wires spinning around a magnet.
The issue isn't always knowing, it's the material science to support the technology. But copper wire has been around for a while.
"let's build a fridge"
"how do i get cyclopentane?"
Starts with nitrogen/nitrogen compounds, specifically ammonia. And there are even simpler ways.
Would it be possible to get it purified enough so the boiling point would be feasible to build a fridge?
This seems 18th century tech, lavoisier, etc.
I would watch someone try to build a fridge with only ancient world means of production.
Would it be possible to get it purified enough so the boiling point would be feasible to build a fridge?
Interestingly yes,^1^ and also, countries went to war for it. Specifically guano and urea (not so much for refrigeration, but for gunpowder). It would be entirely reasonable, with the right skill-set, to concentrate ammonia.
As far as incorporating it into a refrigeration cycle, its basically the same as any other refrigerant in that your going to need a compression loop and an expansion loop to move heat from place A to place B. But lead lined clay or wood pipes could probably meet this requirement^2^.
The earliest ammonia based refridgerators (freezers really) were used almost exclusively for generating ice, which was then sold and moved to other places for refrigeration. Ice like many other staples became a daily sundry like milk or eggs. You can still find many of these "ice houses" all over the world, since they're not even that old. The town I grew up in had a club called the Ice House which was literally an old ice factory.
1: Another reference to the guano wars: https://thebreakthrough.org/articles/remember-the-guano-wars
2: History of early ammonia refrigerators: https://www.ashrae.org/file%20library/technical%20resources/ashrae%20journal/125thanniversaryarticles/60-68_boyle_historical-article-excerpt.pdf
Well that’s not how electricity works. It’s how you can generate it, sure, but electricity exists everywhere.
Silicon exists everywhere. Making it into computer chips is something else.
Sure, but the question in the meme isn’t “how do you make electricity”…it’s “how does that ‘electricity’ work?”
You can make electricity with your hands rubbing on cloth, or with any number of other mechanisms that aren’t windings.
They aren't looking for an academic discussion. They want to see practical uses. I don't know why you're trying so hard to read it in a bizarre way.
They’re greek or Roman, they absolutely are looking for an academic discussion, wtf are you talking about. And I’m not reading into it in a bizarre way, it’s literally what’s in the meme.
Not like Romans were famous engineers that built things. JFC. Not like people in the past tried to improve things. Nope. You are reading it bizarrely. I'm gonna leave it at that.
You’re the one not reading it as written, sorry bud.
Hence the material science bit. Creating anything to make the electricity useful is the hard part.
Hydro power has been around for a long time but was used for direct mechanical work.
Electricity is an abstract layer above that and requires at least something like a light bulb to make any practical sense.
But the meme wasn’t asking how to make electricity! Like if they said that, sure, but they just asked how it worked.
What if the only copper you can get is sold by Ea-nāṣir?
Okay, forget electricity if that's too hard for you.
Instead, draw them a world map from memory. Including what sort of people and animals and plants lived in the different places during ancient times. That should be of interest, and if you're not a total dunce about geography, it will be a lot more accurate and comprehensive than the maps they have. (They will already be aware that the earth is round, though. Don't try to impress them with that.)
Then there's also a lot you could teach about biology, even if you only have a very basic understanding. Basic ideas of genetic inheritance, mutation, and evolution. The body is made up of billions and billions of individual cells that are too small to see. And germ theory -- there are some cells out there that live all on their own as independent creatures smaller than the eye can see -- some of those can get inside your body and multiply, causing diseases -- and you can help prevent this by washing your hands, sanitizing tools, and keeping people's infected shit out of the water supply. (A lot of that will be beyond their current ability to verify, but if you can get them to believe you enough to try some of it out, they'd be able to see the effects.) You could also explain to them the basic human organs, what each of them is for and what each one does -- even if you're not an anatomical expert, just the basics will be a big improvement over some of the theories at the time.
Or how about astronomy? Just knowing that the earth orbits around the sun could potentially be a big help, if you can get them to give the theory any credence. They were already developing (very complicated) mathematical models to predict the motions of the planets. If you could explain heliocentrism to an open-minded mathematician, he'd probably be able to verify that the planetary motions become much easier to calculate under that assumption, which would give your 'crazy' ideas some credence. Explaining what planets and stars actually are would also be a huge deal.
Aeronautical engineering would probably be too far ahead of its time for the most part -- and might be beyond your ability if you can't even explain how electricity works. But you probably could 'invent' the hot air balloon. Start with a small scale model powered by a candle, use that to convince people to help you build larger models until you have one big enough to actually ride in. Being able to fly, even in the limited capacity of a balloon, would be a huge deal in antiquity. It would give you something really fun and amazing to impress important people with, and it could also have massive implications for ancient warfare -- mostly in its ability to gain a bird's eye view of the battlefield for better intelligence and better direction of troop movements.
And what about chemistry? Do you know how to make black powder? Do you know how to describe the ingredients in a way ancient people would understand? (Charcoal, 'Brimstone', 'Saltpeter'.) Do you know where to find those ingredients in nature? If you do, then you could produce some very flashy demonstrations, as well as -- for better or worse -- giving them another weapon that will revolutionize warfare. Even if guns and cannons are impractical given the metallurgy of the time, bombs are very feasible, and that will revolutionize siege warfare when launched from catapults or planted against enemy walls/gates. ... Besides black powder, you could also give them some rudimentary ideas about elements, compounds, the periodic table, acids/bases, the structure of the atom... Much of that will be beyond their ability to verify, but will eventually be viewed as incredibly prescient.
It might be a bit too far ahead of its time -- due to them not having enough good metal to make it practical -- but the concept of the steam engine should be quite interesting, and that's simple enough. You know how a basic steam engine works, right? Boil a closed tank of water, allow the expanding steam to only escape through one outlet, where it has to push a piston to get free, use a crank arm to translate the piston's movement into rotation, use that rotation to do useful work. If you can manage to build a working model of that, you might possibly even jumpstart the industrial revolution early. (Maybe -- a lot of other factors led to the industrial revolution, not just that.)
And that's just scratching the surface. There are plenty of things even an idiot from today should be able to teach ancient people ... if you can manage the delicate art of communicating it to them without getting killed for being a witch/heretic.
My first thing would be germ theory if I’m not dead from all the shit they have in their air, etc
Dude just learn how to flow with the joke.
Sir, this is the internet - home of autism. We will take a joke, and take it to wherever we want.
Most people, who were at school for longer than 3-5 years, should be able to recreate a simplest generator having wires and magnets. Not sure about magnets, but wires were in produce for a few millenniums.
cries in American public education and lack of using brain as an adult
Yeah, blame THEM. Of course despicable THEY never told poor schoolchildren how the generator/electric engine works. I totally believe you. I believe you even more deeply than I believe to your president.
Huh? Should we not be blaming the shitty US education system for failing so many?
I doubt that it is THAT bad.
Oh, it's very very bad.
The basic stuff you're mentioning about electricity is not taught in US highschools (I can't speak to AP classes).
The only reason I know any of it is because I took physics in college
Sorry, but I don't believe you. There is no way that USA school curriculum lacks basic things like Ohm law, magnetism, etc. It just can't be. Yes, I heard that in the USA curriculum isn't country-wide, so it might change from state to state, but not to this nonsensical degree.
I don't even think every high school student here even takes Physics class.
I didn't learn about electromagnetism until Physics 200 in University.
What do I do with the generator? Shock people? Powering a light bulb is out of the question.
Make a fan. It’s just a generator but the other way
Okay, thanks, I will.
Powering a light bulb is out of the question.
Why? But if you're afraid of light, you might create a heater. Very simple construction.
Because light bulbs didn’t exist yet I guess, so you also need the knowlede to convert it into steady light source.
I'm sure you have an overall understanding how light bulb works. Enough to make something workable after a few experiments.
Sure, I'm not a glasblower, but I could fabricate a lightbulb that contains a vacuum and a hair thin wolfram wire.
I don't even know how to mine wolfram.
Knowledge sadly isn't everything.
You don't need neither vacuum nor wolfram for the lightbulb. Return to school. And don't come back:)
Should have grabbed that shirt the dinosaur comics guy made https://www.qwantz.com/fanart/timetravelling.jpg
A version that's a bit easier to read
Just find the Pythagoreans and drop Fermat's last theorem.
Fun for a little bit until you get burned at the stake