There were plenty smart, skilled people throughout history, but a lot of their works lacked proper records to preserve them, it's nice to know some of them are still around today and able to inspire us.
To make it worse for various reasons a lot of records were intentionally destroyed, in addition to just being lost or degraded. It wasn't just not making records. Like the hydraulic engineering being talked about from satellite views of areas in Central America there where huge areas of water control channels built. The civilization which created them isn't known for sure, or why they were built and why abandoned. Just to have built them would have required some kind of records due to size and coordination issues (not to mention math and some type of surveying) but nothing has been found.
@@lo0ksik Exaxtly right ! Angels and giants! They couldn't build a Notre Dame today if they tried! It's all in the greatest history book called the Bible! King James version I reccomend. Go learn the truth human. It is time.
0:42 The Inca empire also engineered their buildings to withstand earthquakes by shaping and wedging the stone blocks (that were used to make the foundations of their buildings) in such a way that when a earthquake occurred, the blocks would (and still) simply wedge themselves tighter.
TBH, many old buildings are safe against quakes. Like ancient buildings. Cause most of them are more broad than tall. It's modern masonry that falls apart like nothing
The practice of building nearly the exact same type of house in every area reguardless of local climate and just relying on active powered systems of temperature and humidity control to force that square peg into what may be a round or triangular hole is actually a quite modern stupidity. Before fairly recently, homes were normally much more intentionally designed to where they were built, and often even oriented in specific dirrections relative to sun and weather when practical. It only seems amazing because we somehow forgot that it was totally normal right up until sometime in the 20th century.
Build them as cheap as possible and don't worry about how much they cost to heat and cool. Some cities have even banned solar panels and fined people whose grass isn't green enough.😫😫😫😫
That started with the Romans. They tried to bring Mediterranean design to places with weather that is very much not Mediterranean. The northern Europeans didn't build round homes because they couldn't use a squaring device; they did it because of the wind.
@Fk Yu Air conditioning bills cost money, genius. Standardised designs were mass implemented to save time, achieve more comfort and greatly simplify safety guidelines.
Thats not entirely true, here in Canada for example, houses are made out of mainly wood and concrete, etc.... The wood can retain the heat quite efficiently even after the electricity goes out for a day and there is no functionnal heater (in temperatures of -30c) But in hot countries like Lebanon where there is constant forest fires and strong winds, houses are built out of marble, granite , stone and concrete. Wood would never be used in construction, as a matter of fact, my cousins in lebanon have to stay near the fire place in order to stay warm during the winter, because there is no wood in the house to retain the heat. Plus, houses in lebanon are mostly white in colour with roman type orange roofs to efficiently reflect the blazing sunlight. Plus in Canada every house has a heater but not necessarly an AC, but in Lebanon every house has an AC but no heater.
The Nabateans did WAY more than just pipes and reservoirs!! Their water management was absolutely astonishing - so much so that I think they deserve an ep of Sci Show just for that! Very, VERY cool stuff there. Not just that one spring was involved, they managed and controlled all water access across their entire kingdom! And the catchments for rainwater were maybe the most sophisticated of the time period, too. I'd be fascinated to see more on them - maybe a comparison/discussion about how Nabatean and Persian water management systems worked!
Daaaang, if that's the case, then they must've had an amazing governing body. It's marvelous, seeing how rapidly and fluidly (excuse the pun) the people's needs were met before the invent of capitalism.
Agree! And it would be interesting to contrast those systems to aqueducts found in Costa Rica's rainforest (Guayabo, Turrialba) dating to ~1000 AD still working perfectly today!
Those yakhchal designs are ingenious. I feel like this is something we really ought to invest on considering how climate control for buildings takes up a huge portion of the energy we consume
There are plenty of free energy designs available that could take a significant load off the grid or simply make energy for free. But taking that revenue from monopolistic energy providers has always been a non-starter. Maybe after they lose the business those practical energy systems will get a chance.
@@mundymorningreport3137 There's no such thing as "free energy." Solar Panels and Wind Turbines all have an initial environmental cost before they start a finite serviceable lifetime of generating clean and renewable energy. But it's pretty much every man for himself in the limelight century of human civilization, so, the onus falls on us as individuals to be self-sufficient.
hahah I love that statement. history has always fascinated me, but in particular things like in the video. just sitting here and imagining how people lived absolutely blows my mind. I wonder what the process of figuring out the ice thing was like
I still call the freezer the ice box. Im a millenial but that's what my grandparents called it. The house i live in has kitchen cupboards that used to be an icebox. It really wasn't that long ago.
There's something we have to remember. People were just as smart then as now and they had their Einstein too. Widespread trade routes also spread knowledge and ideas, not as fast as now but definitely faster than we once thought.
Sounds good but not necessarily true. Intelligence level is measurably goes up due to better education systems. I'm not saying, they didn't have their geniuses - obviously had - but saying like you did implies that people in general were as smart as a modern human. Or... As I think about it, most people on the street are pretty stupid so maybe you are right after all. Ps. Also please keep in mind, that we don't really know for how long they have been struggling with stuff. (Most of) the wonders of the ancient world are the results of tedious try and error work. They have figured it out that 4° decline is the best for water flow. But I don't think that they have calculated it by measuring and multiplying etc, more like "Eh,this is too much, make it less. Less. Less... Okay, it's too little now" etc. In the end of it, they have figured it out and someone at some point down the line even pointed out that yes it is 4° BECAUSE XY. But it wasn't because someone just sat down one evening under the stars and had an eureka moment, without previous knowledge.
That Iranian air conditioning running without power was definitely something we could use. But rebuilding our homes and water delivery infrastructure is a significant investment.
The problem with this is while it will work in dry climates, like the Southwest, it won't work in humid climates, like the South. If there's an off-grid way to get humidity out of the air, I haven't found it yet.
@@shitocodone8940 Well, if they can redirect air to be cooled and to push warmer air out of a space, they can install more features to include and avoid specific sections between day and night time.
Something that is important to note about this, it realistically will only work well in a desert. The cooling effect appears to be a combination of general cool ground and evaporation from the water system, in a humid environment like Louisiana the water would not evaporate noticably so the only cooling would be from the air being in an underground tunnel. Not saying it does nothing in other climates just that the desert dryness enables such a system to operate to its fullest.
yah the real problem is getting the government to invest in any of this. all these ideas mess with industries already in place that rake in millions that can invest lobbyists and special interest groups to put a stop to any of this. when is scishow going to do an episode on how Science is endlessly ignored by washington dc for the sake of profits of the top 1% richest people in the country?
20% loss over nine months, vs 6% loss nowadays w/ all the tech = *mind blown* human ingenuity is underrated and what the ancients could do with essentially primitive science is absolutely incredible!
yah the real problem is getting the government to invest in any of this. all these ideas mess with industries already in place that rake in millions that can invest lobbyists and special interest groups to put a stop to any of this. when is scishow going to do an episode on how Science is endlessly ignored by washington dc for the sake of profits of the top 1% richest people in the country?
Well....advanced.....is a strong word BUT you have to remember that they where juatvas intelligent as modern humans. They had their Einstein's too and if one of those fixed air conditioning in a house with a tower the tech would spread rapidly.
humans have always been humans. just because their civilization ain't around anymore doesn't mean they weren't as smart as us. If anything they were smarter for figuring out how to climate control their homes without electricity. I've often said that our species is utterly terrifyingly smart. Give us an idea and time and we'll make the impossible possible, or as near as it gets. We may not be able to break the laws of physics but we can sure bend them into some funky shapes.
They had what everyone has if the have the time, trial and error, to learn what works and what does not. The physics was not the persuit, just what works.
@JeEr MuCe That distinction is recent. Scientists pursue knowledge and perform research. Engineers use science, creative thinking and problem solving to produce marketable goods and projects. In the past you'd simply be a "man of science", "a learned man" or "scholar of the ___ arts"- all terms we commonly associate with the idea of the reinnisance man.
Sorry I'm only 2 minutes in and now I'm crying at the beauty of humanity just. having a whole festival centered around rebuilding a bridge as a community. Infrastructure being treated as a thing worth celebrating and doing together because it serves everyone in the community. skdafsfasdjfasd i need a nap
I grew up in North East England and assumed we learned so much about the Romans because we are literally surrounded by hundreds of Roman sites. Interesting to learn that it's a thing in American education too.
Though, when you think about it, their (US) government system directly comes out of the British, so of course all their higher education would mimic that too. Like you, they grew up in England *winks* The tome The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was published 1776. The states where united in Sept 1776, it's no coincidence that it's been a big part of their historical discourse.
Too bad modern humans will likely be slow to change our current/future infrastructure designs to be more sustainable/similar to these brilliant ancient ways (I know he spoke of a few buildings that have these ways implemented, but I mean humans as a whole)
@@nunyabiznes33It would work in places like Southern California which is actually a arid climate. Having things like this would greatly bring down the price of air conditioning. The Ice Keepers would also be a god send to modern areas that would require something like it to give ice and water. The only problem is educating the population about it and insuring its worth the money to invest in. Then making sure to keep ahead of mis-information trolls especially those from companies that would see such cost saving and efficient designs be a threat.
I find the Persian ice houses particularly interesting for their possible applications in refrigeration. Refrigerators use incredibly dangerous chemicals to cool the inside, and when the refrigerator isn't disposed of properly at the end of its usable lifespan, then ruptures can occur that let those poisonous gases leak out and wreak havoc on the environment. A more affordable and accessible version of what the Persians used would help a lot with that. Especially with the modern insulation materials mentioned to keep the ice from melting in the non-Winter months.
they banned making fridge or other stuff that uses CFC in 1995, but like cars, some products made before 1995 can still be bought. my point is that replacing fridges with giant cool-looking pyramid will not be worth it
I mean, I'm for sustainably aquaculturing all kinds of different fish, but for the record, eel can be absolutely delicious, and if you have never had it, you wouldn't guess it was anything other than a delicious white fish. I don't get it that often because of price and sustainability, but it's one of my favorite sushi meats, being light and sweet and buttery and it's not even something like squid that even people who have no conceptual problem with may not like the texture. Just straight-up, if you like white fish, you would like eel, because that's what it is, dispite the odd shape.
@@dynamicworlds1 nah eel is certainly not like other white fish. I live on a sailboat and eat what I catch which is often American eels. They have an incredibly soft meat without the clearly defined muscle bands that make fish flaky. Very good to eat but is completely different from white fish like the perch family. Their raw meat is much more transparent than a true white fish as well
@@garethferguson4434 the less flakey texture (which varies in degree between white fish) is what I was referring to with "buttery". The main thing I was referring to was the flavor, though, and since texture-wise it is well-within the range of texture of normally eaten meats, especially those which have been cooked to be particularly tender (rather than, like squid, having an unusual texture some may find offputting). I just left it at that one word since I was talking about the first reaction of someone first trying it without knowing what it is being very familiar. Of course, those of us who've had both can tell the difference. I was just speaking to the very common reaction where people are repulsed by the appearance of eels, dispite totally enjoying it if they actually try it. Appologies if I failed to make that clear enough.
@@dynamicworlds1 I live on Gunditjmara country (near Budj Bim) and have a mate who is a professional eeler in the area. The eels in question are smelly things that need a LOT of boiling to be edible. Despite their healthy numbers in the region, they are not popular with locals for fishing. I can't eat them. However, I have two dams on the property which are full of yabbies (freshwater crayfish) and they are absolutely sensational to eat. Since eels eat yabbies, I know which I'd rather have in my dams!
Wasn't that era when after world being stagnant for millennia, within span of a few centuries, on part of a single continent whole modern technology was created?
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 yes, Europe developed a lot of new technologies, I was just wondering about the ancient things from their colonies. They could've come in handy
It's quite the opposite. The British and French were very intent on studying native cultures during the colonialism era, which is why anthropology and archaeology flourished during that time
@@n0yn0y THE OPPOSITE? THEY BURN THE FIRST UNIVERSITY IN THE WORLD AND A LIBRARY FULL OF IMPORTANT AND ONE OF A KIND HISTORY BOOKS, DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH INFORMATION *WAS* THERE? STOP TALKING ABOUT TOPIC YOU ARE NOT MASTERED IN! Seriously, stop it frank.
They knew how to cool a building and store ice, along with so much engineering that we still use today. From Egypt to The Americans. They were just as smart as we are and in many ways they were more capable considering they didn’t have many of the conveniences we have. They could do more with a whole lot less. Most people knew how to survive whereas people now can’t survive without their local supermarket let alone with nothing.
This is impressive! :O And it almost feels like our building are dumber now! :O Particularly please and impressed with ancient aboriginal Australia engineering!
I don't think our buildings are "that" dumb... It's just that we are far more numerous than we used to be 1000 years ago and housing billions of people all over the world means we have to make sacrifices somewhere. Also, many of us live in really tall buildings now, or sky-scrappers. But as time progresses and technology gets better, we will find new ways to solve our problems... or maybe adapt using old methods or take inspiration from nature.
I think it's because profit has become the driver of innovation in our time and that's stifling. These ancient peoples were doing these things as a means of survival so it didn't matter if the tech was unproven or took a lot of resources; their civilization was at stake so they were willing to invest the time, energy, and resources. Now most companies are just concerned with their profit margin. I think it's no coincidence that a lot of the REAL innovation we see today is in the form of open-source technology. When profit isn't the driver, that's when innovation can really blossom.
Even looking back to early American architecture we designed buildings for air flow and shade which cooled them in the summer. The introduction of air conditioners has changed that.
my momma, who was born in 1948, grew up where they called the fridge an icebox... and she'd always call the fridge the icebox. making me think she was talking about the freezer, but she just referred either side indiscriminately as the ice box.
Do you know why it was called an ice box? if not, I suggest you ask your mum, or otherwise research it & then the fridge/freezer thing will make more sense to you
Ancient Aliens: "Alright, we made it to earth. Let's teach these primitive humans how to build things." [5 minutes later] "Nvm, that ice house is sick. Greg, make sure to take notes."
Combination of air conditioners and Icehouse technology can cool several City buildings. I think they work where the air conditioner freezes the coais at night and uses the ice over the coils during the day
Yep. It would greatly bring down cost to. That's why its likely will never see them in use in modern cities unless we have leaders and communities actually push such technology. and able to push through despite the massive misinformation campaign that will result from air-conditioning and refegeration companies that will see both as a major threat.
The downside to the Badgir is that if they started seeing widespread use, than utility corporations would sue to own the wind going through the structures.
Notice that the modern example was built in Utah. I suspect that badgir systems work best in low humidity environments (rather like passive swamp coolers). It probably wouldn't work so well someplace like Philadelphia, and I can't imagine it working in New Orleans.
sustainable methods of micro climate control are simply mind-blowing, its incredible what the human mind is capable of, we really need to go back to using these methods if we are to save ourselves from rapid climate change
Those yakhchals are really cool! Whoever invented them must have been a stone cold mad lad. Seriously though, in a desert they gotta be the closest thing to heaven.
Excellent video that adds value. I especially like the Persian idea of cooling air in the basement before displacing hot air is simple ,ingenious, and totally solves a fundamental(sorry for accidental pun) challenge of housing in the 21st century, how to live with more 40-50c heat waves? After all who would know how to build a successful civilization in an environment like that? There's a good reason why UK houses some of Persia's artefacts at the British museum for sure. The summers are getting more like this now over in London, what if the oldest underground transport network was used to cool London buildings to air con in one of the most energy efficient ways possible? It might give railways in Britain another viable income source as usage has collapsed and hybrid home working opportunism becomes more available.
You don't even have to look that long ago to find more sustainable building practices. Thicker walls, smaller rooms, higher ceilings with dormer like structures on the roof to let air escape were used right up until the post WW2 period.
What is the probability of watching and random video on RU-vid and get a notification from scishow with the thumbnail of the exact same thing I was watching???
Nice! Beyond engineering, there is also a lot to explore in learn in what's termed "vernacular architecture", which I like to call as "the architecture built in a place before we threw oil at any problem." :P There are so many ways we can incorporate that knowledge to make more livable, more sustainable, and more exciting places to live and work and play. :)
Qanats are interesting. It's technically a well, but it draws from an aquifier on the side of a mountain at _higher_ elevation than the well. Mountains catch more precipitation than the lowlands, and in the desert it tends to soak into the ground rather than run off in surface streams. Theoretically, that could work in any mountainous desert region.
a Bbc program i once saw of the same Iranian water system, in the desert of China, where the local dug these channels to carry water to their towns. And just outside the town they grew grapes (in a desert!). And they also dried them to make raisin.
Polyurethane! Yay! Something that doesn't biodegrade well... I'm so glad we're so smart... How about we just scale up what they were doing beforehand because it worked and also was non-polluting? Sorry for the sarcasm, but seriously.
I get the sentiment over polyurethane, but on the other hand making infrastructure out of biodegradable material isn't very smart, is it? No point in scaling up something in a way that is expected to have massive upkeep/repair costs as opposed to more reliable and efficient materials
@@casemiro1993 I see your point, but think of how many products are made with planned obsolescence. Just because the lifespan of a thing isn't as long as an artificial material, doesn't mean it's not still useful. It's made out of a thing that you can break down and rebuild into the very same thing :-)
@@casemiro1993 Aren't there lots of buildings made of wood (a biodegradable material!) that have lasted for a thousand over years? This is just one example, but if you know how to use the materials of choice properly, use protective materials or design your building to account for the nature of the material, wouldn't it last long?
@@casemiro1993 The thing is, I would agree with you if it wasn't for the fact that modern buildings require a ridiculous amount of upkeep and many integral parts (like water heater, HVAC, roof even) need replacing every 10 to 20 years.
Now I'm wondering if I can adapt something to attach to _my_ house, to use the crawlspace (we don't have a basement - they hit bedrock, and wanted a fortune to blast it) to cool the house passively, at least for a huge portion of the summer. The electricity saved would make it worth the work, I would think. Definitely something to look into. And that ice house design? Wow, such a great - even brilliant - idea, that is SO doable with modern technology. And there's no reason at all we can't use it in a very large portion of the world. Hmmm... I think only the latitudes south of the Tropic of Cancer and north of the Tropic of Capricorn likely don't get enough freezing days to use that method there _in situ,_ but ice could certainly be shipped there in those areas and stored with this technology. Saving a TON of energy used now for huge refrigeration tech, not to mention the freon! Excellent ideas that we need to get back to, to make the world a better place - and arguably make beautiful, too!
I have been struggling with some levels of Bridge Constructor, and this video is teaching me that I have been trying to build the suspension bridges all wrong. Thanks SciShow, I can't wait to retry those levels of my game!
There's also this bird tower in Egypt, I think, that serves as sort of like a nesting place and a toilet room for birds. They collect the manure and use it as an organic fertilizer rich in phosphorus. I don't know if it's ancient tho.
So for those who don’t know, those shallow water pools would freeze solid even when the ambient temperature was as high as 5 degrees Celsius. The water got colder than the surrounding air and ground due to “radiative cooling”. Essentially there’s a particular wavelength of radiation that water emits that is not absorbed by air that will just get lost into space. It’s a really cool use of what would otherwise be a minor curiosity.
loved your right pronunciation or foreign names. In Mexico, Moctezuma had a system of routes with constant flow of tamemes (backpakers transporters) that provided him with fresh salt waterfisheries from the gulf of mexico and snow from the near popocatepetl vulcan. I thins is somehow alike modern delivery systems but for long distances with relays
Knowing how history plays out makes it easy to believe people just dealt with inconvenience until electricity and other such technologies came into play. But people in the past didn't know what was coming in the future, they just knew they were too hot, or that they needed water, or that they needed a way to cross a ravine, and they used their understanding of the world around them to come up with solutions.
I'd love to hear more about the ancient Persian technologies that were in use and still in use, plus interior views of the technologies in use. Like what the "ice house" looks like inside, or the cooling towers inside some of those places. Showing the outside only is just teasing us.
Soo why don't deserts use the ice thing and why don't they put solar on top of the water so it doesn't evaporate very fast and they can make energy. Thoughts.
Main reason. Money.. It cost money to build this. There is some investment and our society doesn't like taking risk Money Cause companies have a stake and monopoly and introducing a ancient tech that could replace modern tech (Even if you modernize it to be far more efficient to the point a refrigeration company could literally make a fortune in this.) would be a threat to said companies who's purpose is to create equipment that last a few years and needs replacement. If you create something like this that requires little maintenance, and efficient it means more people will create it. Less money for certain companies. These companies will then attempt to discourage it, to the point of even having cities or counties to possibly tax those that have it. Such as when the gop wanted to tax hybrid and electric users for using cars on the road. Its all about money.
@@Quetzalcoatl_Feathered_Serpent there is also the time aspect. These older technologies take time and manpower and companies are only interested in quarterly sales.
@@lenabreijer1311 Yep that's true. The issue however is right now. We don't have the time and yet we have the manpower and companies will refuse to do so until it proves worth the investment. The trick is going around the companies. Have things like these be community projects and the Airconditioning doesn't even need to be as there is no reason a modern house can't have it in a design. Places such as Hawaii doesn't have air-conditioning in many homes due to house designs and similar so that one just needs popularity something that can easily be achieved via examples and social media. The Ice making ones will be the real challenge however as they are buildings. I think the idea needs to be sold as a community emergency building for food or similar. I think they should be done as community projects especially in arid places like in Southern California and other deserts. Build them as small scale community experiments something they could back behind. have a neighborhood or community make something like this that lets them keep things in cold storage incase of say a emergency? or maybe able to produce there own ice? If a major Quake or drought hits such a building would be essential in insuring a local community is self-sufficient for a couple days or months with fresh ice and some water in storage, and food that needs to be preserved as once your power goes out you have a limited time limit before food in your fridge spoils. Thus you could have several of them being built and people still have ice boxes and fridges still until they eventually phase over to something that doesn't make them suffer electrical bills. Of course your going to have to pull a massive social media campaign to push the use of them and avoid having them as replacing modern devices.
Refreshing to see a non-western-civilization-centric view of engineering and applied science :) It bears to emphasize that, not only were many such innovation "lost to time", but many more were also actively destroyed or put-down for/by religious and geo-political reasons & colonialism. This is especially true in fields of medicine and astronomy.
yeh, the eel system for example is actually believed to be 10 times the age given here, but colonialism isn't dead yet & that's still suppressed in every way possible
Ah, so we have the Inca to thank for literally every scene in a cartoon or movie with an old rickety rope bridge that the hero must traverse while the wooden planks snap under them or arrows and other projectiles are launched at them forcing a risky "deliberately cut the rope holding up the bridge with a machete" maneuver.
Water management was extremely important to the ancients and there were many successes and failures we would to well to study today.
2 года назад
Thanks for all these inspiring video's ! I knew about most of thes things, but not exactly how the ice was made and what angles to use and that bugged me. So thanks!
Double-check the 4% slope comment. The minimum slope on the 8-inch clay pipe used for sewer conveyance is 0.4%. This gives a velocity of 2 feet per second which is the speed necessary for self-cleaning of the pipe. This slight grade still requires 21 feet per mile to maintain. The four per percent is much more energy than needed to replace the energy from the friction in the flowing water and changes in direction. Google hydraulic grade line. Love your work.
exactly, they were one of the most advanced civilisation... and have so much to teach modern humans about real sustainability on all levels, not just technology.
they're already known, this is a look into some of the civilisations that were just as advanced, if not moreso, that for whatever reason have been suppressed in the history we learn
