What's the earliest era in which people could reverse engineer a car?

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by cdcox

When the US developed the atomic bomb, I'm not sure the science of the device was even the rate limiting step. I'd lean more to figuring out how to separate Uranium 235, building the factories to do it, and then the inherent time it took to do the separations were rate limiting.
.

This is true. It required the production of the largest industrial buildings ever known to man, using more power than the city of Los Angeles running for years, producing little more than a handful of U-235, for a crude gun device that slammed two subcritical masses together.

Reading your post in many ways undercuts the feasible importance of Cyberdyne in Terminator 2

[mdchiefsfan]

I don't know the answer to your question, but I do know you're stuck until November 5, 1955: when the flux capacitor was conceptualized.

[Rain Man]

It's interesting to me because it implies that we can't make a huge technological leap forward. I like the point that one can't understand how to manufacture a material by studying the material.

When we think about the Chinese bootlegging products, there's obviously some time jump available through reverse engineering, but maybe that's more design than actual materials manufacturing.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

It's interesting to me because it implies that we can't make a huge technological leap forward. I like the point that one can't understand how to manufacture a material by studying the material.

When we think about the Chinese bootlegging products, there's obviously some time jump available through reverse engineering, but maybe that's more design than actual materials manufacturing.

Sure, on the time scales that military and high tech commercial technologies are important, a few years advance is not that difficult to reverse engineer and is relevant to their goals.

[Trivers]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

It's interesting to me because it implies that we can't make a huge technological leap forward. I like the point that one can't understand how to manufacture a material by studying the material.

When we think about the Chinese bootlegging products, there's obviously some time jump available through reverse engineering, but maybe that's more design than actual materials manufacturing.

If a car was dropped into 1700 England, and it still worked, and they didn't ruin the carb, or drain the battery while playing around with it, would they be able to reproduce? No.

As was said earlier, technical advances would have been made in select areas by observation and testing; but mfg of working components....no.

People thoughout the ages have been as innovative and smart as our inventors today; ever since the western world mindset of patent ownership, its been the MATERIALS that have determined the rate of innovation.

When I was in the composite industry, we made communication towers 300ft long that weighed 500lbs. Try making that in 1700 or 1850 of wood or cast iron or steel.

[TLO]

[big nasty kcnut]

Tesla and Edison could reverse engineer that shit!

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by big nasty kcnut

Tesla and Edison could reverse engineer that shit!

Tesla could have. Edison was a hack.

[GloucesterChief]

The mechanical parts can actually be manufactured relatively early in Northern Europe. Probably the 1300s. Mechanical clocks were mentioned in writings as far back as 1280. The Northern Europeans had a very good grasp of mechanization based off of water mills, partly why they industrialized so quickly they had all the components figured out just need to hook up to a different power source.

The problem is something to power the engine. The earliest possible would be with steam and you would be looking at more locomotive than car at that point.

[Arrowhead Thunder]

Originally Posted by GloucesterChief

The mechanical parts can actually be manufactured relatively early in Northern Europe. Probably the 1300s. Mechanical clocks were mentioned in writings as far back as 1280. The Northern Europeans had a very good grasp of mechanization based off of water mills, partly why they industrialized so quickly they had all the components figured out just need to hook up to a different power source.

The problem is something to power the engine. The earliest possible would be with steam and you would be looking at more locomotive than car at that point.

considering the task is to make something that can go 13 mph, I'm with you on figuring out the mechanics early. Again within the scope of the challenge, clearances and requiring all iron/steel shouldn't be too big a deal. Replace critical rubber with cork for gaskets, tires could be wood too like wagon wheels (mythbusters used log slices semi-successfully). Also does vulcanized rubber smell like rubber trees? maybe that would lead people to discover the process quicker.

Same thing for fuel, maybe the gas would clue people onto the untapped potential of crude oil earlier. Otherwise, nat gas was discovered in the 1600's in the US, there was a wood burning car prototyped at some point I heard about on Car Talk once.

I think once they got down the idea of compressed combustion they would be up and running pretty quick somewhere around 1750.

The fact that the most powerful person in the world is trying to figure it out would have something to do with it too. If they got to see the Bandit's TA in action they would figure it out, knowing it would be a key to military/
industrial dominance. I bet the english would get it first, but what the hell do I know. This was a fun question.

[prhom]

Think about this, the prototypes for airplane wings (birds) have been around for a very long time and it took humanity forever to figure out how to fly. That doesn't require advanced manufacturing facilities either. I'm thinking we might be giving out ancestors too much credit. It's an interesting question though.

[kepp]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

The scenario:

It's a sunny Saturday afternoon, and you decide to go to a car show. There's a sweet 1977 Trans Am, black with gold trim, and you decide to sit in and pretend you're eastbound and down, loaded up and trucking.

Sorry, but it's "truckin'"

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by kepp

Sorry, but it's "truckin'"

I can't type a text with those little abbreviations, either. Cultural relevance is no excuse for bad grammar.

[Rain Man]

So what you're saying, then, is that we might as well not make contact at all with aliens. There's no huge upside for us. They're either going to be tech-savvy and view us as savages, or they're just going to go on the welfare rolls.

[Trivers]

I loved the SiFi shows Stargate and Stargate Atlantis. However, one of the major flaws was they went through the galaxy picking up new technologies and 3 months later had it reversed engineered and creating power supplies and star vessels.

A better example may be "Interdependence Day 2. I've read that in the movie script...it's been twenty years since the aliens were defeated and left their technology all over the planet. Apparently, the humans can't figure out how the power technology works; but have managed to attach to our technology to make very powerful weapons. (Can't wait to see it.) Eventually, we would figure it out in the real world; but not for a very long time.