There is a Twilight Zone episode where a businessman makes a pact with the Devil, which allows him to go back in time so that he can capitalize off of his knowledge about the future. It turns out though that the businessman’s knowledge about the future is all superficial and thus he is unable to jump start any technological advancements by traveling back in time. This would likely be the plight of most contemporary humans if they were sent back in time. While we rely greatly on technology, most of us don’t know much about how it actually works and where the materials to make it come from.
If you were to travel 2000 years into the past, how useful would you be in jumpstarting technological advancements? This 10 question quiz will help you figure out your technological usefulness.
Take the Technology Quiz. Yours truly got 7 correct of the 10.
Link via kottke.
I also got 7 out of 10, earning a “quite good”.
I got eight right, but I think my biggest contribution would be to tell the ancients that they should seal their bottles with cork rather than pitch. I could save the world about 1,500 years of drinking turpentine-flavored wine.
5/5. Though, in all fairness, I’d probably be eaten by a bear before trying to impart any sort of knowledge to the past people.
I missed refrigeration and aluminum so civilization would be denied cold beer in cans for centuries if it were left up to me.
I also missed the type of engine but that was just being stupid.
6 out of ten. It scored me mediocre. But I think I’d like the 15th Century.
I missed refrigeration & aluminum, too. And the one about lift, and the cement one. No idea. But I think I could figure out lift through trial & error if I had an engine.
I got 6/10. I’m proud of my score. Is the average person really supposed to know how to make aluminum, steel or cement?
This blog is intended only for people who wish to be considered above average. 🙂
Hahaha.
And I got 7 right as well: the A.C., rotary kiln, and aluminum questions were the ones I missed.
You’d think growing up in New Mexico, I’d know about evaporative coolers, but the refrigerator part of the question threw me off. I couldn’t think what a fridge evaporates to cool food.
Wikipedia, here I come…
I, too, got 7 out of 10 correct and could swing us into the 17th, maybe even the 19th century.
That kind of scares me, though, ’cause I have no idea how I did that… lol!
I can cook over an open fire… If that means anything… to anyone.
lol!
6 out of 10. I am mediocre. Feh.
I don’t know which ones I missed. I didn’t look. I don’t care. That’s how mediocre people are. 😉