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Colonel Philip J. Corso

Chris L said:
I just love this whole reverse engineer alien tech thing. A simple bit of thought would prove just how silly it is.

Take a piece of mundane 21st century technology, like a cell phone. Send it back 100 years to the very early 20th century. Now figure the odds of those folks trying to reverse engineer it and tell me we can do it for tech that is likely 1000's of years ahead of us.
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To reverse engineer it, you would likely first have to have some vague notion of what it did and how it did it. cell phone sent back a hundred years - even a simple one that was really just a telephone - would be hopeless. MAYBE if you sent it back to the mid-60s they would have a good chance, but.
 
fuelair said:
To reverse engineer it, you would likely first have to have some vague notion of what it did and how it did it. cell phone sent back a hundred years - even a simple one that was really just a telephone - would be hopeless. MAYBE if you sent it back to the mid-60s they would have a good chance, but.
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And you'd have to reverse engineer the cell towers, the satellites, the batteries, and all the other infrastructure. (Well, you would HAVE TO do the billing system.)
 
I'm too late, but I was thinking with the 100 year example...

FIRST, you need to build a SECOND phone! Ouch.
 
A basic reproduction of a 6 shooter may not of been an insurmountable challenge to the romans tho.
 
I don't know if this is stating the obvious, but I wouldn't think that Philip Corso is getting any "real evidence to back up his claims" on account of the man being dead since July 16, 1998
:D
 
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And you'd have to reverse engineer the cell towers, the satellites, the batteries, and all the other infrastructure. (Well, you would HAVE TO do the billing system.)
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Exactly my point. Any given piece of technology does not exist in and of itself. There is an entire technological infrastructure that has to be there first. For instance, in the phone example, not only do you need all the things already listed, but you also need to invent the semiconductor industry too. And to do that, you need to invent (or discover, depending how you look at it) quantum mechanics.
 
manxman said:
What infrastructure do you need for a 6 shooter then.
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Bullets, cowboys to shoot at. spitoons to start the fights to have a reason to shoot at cowboys

hmmm
Leather holster industry
:D

Ok I worked out where the OP went wrong now. The article he linked to was a review for Philip Corsos new book published on July 6th, 1998. The author of the review obviously didn't bother to check his current status or simply copied a review from somewhere else, the book is available for sale from that website.

unfortunately
Phillip Corso died ten days after it was published
:D
 
manxman said:
A basic reproduction of a 6 shooter may not of been an insurmountable challenge to the romans tho.
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Analysing the propellent and primer would be rather difficult before the development of systematic chemistry let alone manufacturing them. Manufacturing a replica revolver with the Roman level of ironworking would also be tricky. It wasn't unknown for firearms of the 1860s era to burst and steel quality was far beyong the Roman level.
FYI historical estimates for the iron production of the entire Roman Empire in the late first century CE are ~20,000 tonnes. Metals were rare an iron knife blade cost the equivilant of a modern car; a legionary's gear would be equivilant in cost to a Humvee type vehicle.
I don't doubt that such comparisons would hold for advanced alien technology; perhaps they need perfect crystals grown in free fall, for example. We might be able to manage that today but the effort required would be significant.
 
I still reckon that a working model wouldn't be beyond them.

Cost etc, dont make me laugh.

They had the basics.
 
What infrastructure do you need for a 6 shooter then.
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Since it is a product of the industrial revolution, I'm afraid your Romans would have to create that steam powered era, as well as the scientific principles that led to it.
 
Depends what you mean by "working model." If you mean "one that wouldn't blow up if fired," than probably not.
 
manxman said:
Why couldnt the romans shoe a horse then.
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They could, perhaps you meant "Why could the romans shoe a horse then"
which is a straw man question, as horseshoes do not require gunpowder for attachment
:)
 
They had the metallurgical knowledge possibly, but the invention of gunpower had to wait until 850CE
They would have probably thought that was magic.
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From the smell after it went off, they might guess the sulfur part, and the color might suggest charcoal, but the potassium nitrate would be a total mystery.
 
They had something similar to this in a science fiction series by Eric Flint and David Drake, the Belisarius series. Of course, they were given information by a time-travelling "magic" being.:)
 
Of course, they were given information by a time-travelling "magic" being.
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Well sure, if you have the Class 5 Vegan Starship, and the operations manual, and the building plans, and all the engineering and physics textbooks the Vegans use to educate their engineers and designers, maybe even Bob Lazar could reverse engineer the thing.
 
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