Ed_Laprade
Adventurer
With regards to the button, buttons were easy. Its the buttonhole that's the hard part.
JEL said:It wasn't until tin became scarce that it became advantagous to switch to iron. Even though they knew of it, there was no reason to use it (except as a precous metal ironically enough) when bronze was easier.
green slime said:The decimal point was never used in the middle ages. It is an invention completely seperate from arabic numerals.
And it took quite some time to develop negative numbers as well, which is perfectly reasonable. Who ever heard of -1 cow? What on earth is that? An anti-cow?
painandgreed said:Without a heat source, steam engine powered factories aren't really feasable and all industries remains cottage industries with everything being made by hand.
It's an invention that predates what we commonly think of as the middle ages by centuries, but it was invented by Arab mathematicians. In a D&D world, where travel -- particularly by the more educated portion of a society -- is much more common, it's hard to imagine that such an advance wouldn't have spread much more quickly, even if you don't get extraplanar summoned beings involved.green slime said:The decimal point was never used in the middle ages. It is an invention completely seperate from arabic numerals.
Hush, you!Woas said:What about wind and water power? A lot of towns in New York and New England were founded for the sole purpose of water powered factories. And not just little mills, large multi-floored textile factories.
Someone said:I wrote a lenghty post before realizing we were saying the same, but so cleverly that seemed that we didn´t agreed. I think you got what you said from wikipedia, since you quote almost verbatim the article on iron. The problem is that of course there´s a very good reason to use iron instead of bronze: it´s mechanically superior in many ways. However it takes a higher technology to reduce iron from ore than copper or tin. It simply was rarer and more expensive, specially when the tech needed to refin it wans´t totally developed or extended.
And after all when a new technology appears it usually has a period of coexistence with the obsolete technology. When firearms appeared the bowmen didn´t say "Awww, !" and suddendly made firewood with their bows and arrows.
green slime said:The decimal point was never used in the middle ages. It is an invention completely seperate from arabic numerals.
green slime said:And it took quite some time to develop negative numbers as well, which is perfectly reasonable. Who ever heard of -1 cow? What on earth is that? An anti-cow?