A Physics Forum Member in King Arthur's Court

[DaveC426913]

Standing in the shower this morning trying to figure if I know how to make soap.

I think I know how to make penicillin (the white fuzz that grows on the green fuzz that grows on bread), but I don't know how to preserve it, pack it, how to make it into edible form or how to make agar (petrie dish growing medium).

 

[erobz]

Standing in the shower this morning trying to figure if I know how to make soap.

I think I know how to make penicillin (the white fuzz that grows on the green fuzz that grows on bread), but I don't know how to preserve it, pack it, how to make it into edible form or how to make agar (petrie dish growing medium).

I think the truth of the matter is we would have much more to learn about survival outside of the system than we could teach before we died ourselves. Try going into the cold snowy woods today with nothing but a knife and your clothes.

 

[jedishrfu]

I know several posts here have mentioned the idea of convincing people that women have intelligence and should be schooled along with boys.

However, history paints a different picture. The early transmission of Christianity shows it was sponsored by women, and many small congregations were led by women, but later generations sought to erase that history. Frescoes and mosaics were altered or defaced to hide the gender because she was a woman.

We may have had women leaders throughout history, but men in power see women as dangerous. It's played out even in today's world. I doubt if any time traveler could change that ever.

 

[DaveC426913]

I think the truth of the matter is we would have much more to learn about survival outside of the system than we could teach before we died ourselves. Try going into the cold snowy woods today with nothing but a knife and your clothes.

Ok, but what does that have to do with helping the people of 17th century London?

 

[erobz]

I know several posts here have mentioned the idea of convincing people that women have intelligence and should be schooled along with boys.

However, history paints a different picture. The early transmission of Christianity shows it was sponsored by women, and many small congregations were led by women, but later generations sought to erase that history. Frescoes and mosaics were altered or defaced to hide the gender because she was a woman.

We may have had women leaders throughout history, but men in power see women as dangerous. It's played out even in today's world. I doubt if any time traveler could change that ever.

What are we talking about, what class of people? My grandfather, just born maybe 114 years ago didn't make it out of the 8th grade before he went to the coal mines to help support his family, after he was shipped overseas to fight a few years later?

 

[erobz]

Ok, but what does that have to do with helping the people of 17th century London?

What class of people are you trying to educate?

 

[jedishrfu]

What are we talking about, what class of people? My grandfather, just maybe 114 years ago didn't make it out of the 8th grade before he went to the coal mines to help support his family, after he was shipped overseas to fight a few years later?

What does your grandfather have to do with women being treated as intellectual equals to men?

 

[erobz]

What does your grandfather have to do with women being treated as intellectual equals to men?

I just don't see this major difference in how men and women we treated back then...It seems like a perspective of the aristocrats. I also had a great aunt in the vicinity of his age that skipped grades and graduated high school early. I live in backwoods rural America, and so did they. Should she have went to college while my grandfather was sent over to crawl around in the mud getting shot at in his 20's? Same with my other grandfather, only he was 18.

 

[DaveC426913]

What class of people are you trying to educate?

Well the question is meant elicit to ideas I had not thought of, so if educating a class of people is what you think would be best, I can't argue with that.

My take was more along the lines of trying to set up shop (somehow) and improving life generally to the citizens of the town. I suppose I see that as an apothecary, where people might come for ailments. I'd use it as a home base to urge them to drive out the rats, use clean, boiled water, wash regularly and where I could treat injuries as anti-septically as feasible. In my fantasy, after a few wins, I might gain some respect for my wisdom in keeping people alive.

 

[erobz]

Well the question is meant elicit to ideas I had not thought of, so if educating a class of people is what you think would be best, I can't argue with that.

My take was more along the lines of trying to set up shop (somehow) and improving life generally to the citizens of the town. I suppose I see that as an apothecary, where people might come for ailments. I'd use it as a home base to urge them to drive out the rats, use clean, boiled water, wash regularly and where I could treat injuries as anti-septically as feasible. In my fantasy, after a few wins, I might gain some respect for my wisdom in keeping people alive.

But if you are time traveling with no useable wealth except knowledge...then you are coming back as a bum in the streets of London?

 

[DaveC426913]

But if you are time traveling with no useable wealth except knowledge...then you are coming back as a bum in the streets of London

The technicalities of the actual "how do I get through the first week and find a bed to sleep in" are meant to be beyond the scope of the question. Assume some kind soul takes mercy and puts you up until you can make yourself useful.

I do not mean to lead this in a particular direction but I keep coming back to these Star Trek episodes for my imagination:

Thine Own Self, wherein Data, suffering from amnesia finds himself in a village roughly equivalent to Renaissance Earth and tries to find a cure for what ails the village people.

Another one, though much less analogous, is The City of the Edge of Forever, Kirk and Spock survive in 1930 by the mercy of Edith Keeler who, in exchange for menial duties, puts them up in a room in her New York mission.


Oh - and for the record: no, I did not make this thread as any kind of prelude to writing my own time travel story - it just happens to be something I think about a lot when I think about my place in the world.

 

[erobz]

The technicalities of the actual "how do I get through the first week and find a bed to sleep in" are meant to be beyond the scope of the question. Assume some kind soul takes mercy and puts you up until you can make yourself useful.

I do not mean to lead this in a particular direction but I keep coming back to these Star Trek episodes for my imagination:

Thine Own Self, wherein Data, suffering from amnesia finds himself in a village roughly equivalent to Renaissance Earth and tries to find a cure for what ails the village people.

Another one, though much less analogous, is The City of the Edge of Forever, Kirk and Spock survive in 1930 by the mercy of Edith Keeler who, in exchange for menial duties, puts them up in a room in her New York mission.


Oh - and for the record: no, I did not make this thread as any kind of prelude to writing my own time travel story - it just happens to be something I think about a lot when I think about my place in the world.

I'd imagine you don't need to time travel. If you are really worried about it you could probably catch a flight to many places that exist in the world today and try it? You could make it an autobiography.

 

[jedishrfu]

I just don't see this major difference in how men and women we treated back then...It seems like the perspective of the aristocrats. I also had a great aunt near his age who skipped grades and graduated high school early. I live in backwoods rural America, and so did they. Should she have went to college while my grandfather was sent over to crawl around in the mud getting shot at in his 20's? Same with my other grandfather, only he was 18.

You're missing the point of the thread. Some posters suggested changing the mindset of people in power by showing how women were equal to men in intelligence back in history. In contrast, I was arguing that historically aristocratic men would limit women whenever they could.

 

[DaveC426913]

I'd imagine you don't need to time travel. If you are really worried about it you could probably catch a flight to many places that exist in the world today and try it? You could make it an autobiography.

A fair point, but they don't suffer from primitive knowledge, they suffer from primitive access. Unless I went into the jungles of the amazon, I probably wouldn't need to convince anyone why clean water, soap and penicillin is a good thing.

 

[DaveC426913]

The meme.

 

[Algr]

The biggest barrier would probably be the powerful fearing social change. So sadly, the best way to get ideas adopted is to show them as useful for military applications. (Defense, of course.)

Everyone has mentioned sanitation, I agree. If the goal is to advance humanity as fast as possible, the next thing I would concentrate on is the scientific method: Control and experiment groups to determine what works and what doesn't. Finally, what I know of chemistry is certainly incomplete, but it is enough to get their own researchers making progress.

 

[Hornbein]

But if you are time traveling with no useable wealth except knowledge...then you are coming back as a bum in the streets of London?

Knowledge is power.

 

[Hornbein]

You're missing the point of the thread. Some posters suggested changing the mindset of people in power by showing how women were equal to men in intelligence back in history. In contrast, I was arguing that historically aristocratic men would limit women whenever they could.

Catherine the Great. Queens Victoria and Elizabeth I. Hatshepsut, Cleopatra, and Nefertiti. Hurrem Sultan during the Sultanate of Women. 鄭一嫂[Zheng Yi Sao] ruled southern China as a pirate. Theodora of Rome, Empress Elisabeth of Austria brokered the Austria-Hungary merger, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Elisabeth_of_Austria

 

[Algr]

Those are other people. The rules that everyone else had to obey often broke down at the top.

 

[renormalize]

Those are other people. The rules that everyone else had to obey often broke down at the top.

Still true today.

 

[Baluncore]

In contrast, I was arguing that historically aristocratic men would limit women whenever they could.

There was no need for men to do that.

Women have always competed amongst themselves for the attention of the alpha male. Those women are taken advantage of, by that male, and the successful women benefitted. It was those women, who limited and disempowered other women, seen as their competition. The same is true today.

Meanwhile, malnutrition, disease, the death of women in childbirth, and of their children, has limited the entire community, men included.