The first ever round thing
Discussion
I spend a lot of time thinking about starting a new civilisation from scratch, whether after a nuclear war, or through a time travel accident or even just stuck on a remote island with no human settlement, and this one problem seems like the hardest to solve.
Supposing you are in that situation, food, fire, water and everything is taken care of so you set about mechanisation, as one does. Most things like pumps, metal tools and even an engine would be relatively straight forward once you had a lathe, and a lathe would be fairly easy once you had something that was round. But how do you get the first ever round thing?
How would you go about this?
Supposing you are in that situation, food, fire, water and everything is taken care of so you set about mechanisation, as one does. Most things like pumps, metal tools and even an engine would be relatively straight forward once you had a lathe, and a lathe would be fairly easy once you had something that was round. But how do you get the first ever round thing?
How would you go about this?
But how would you cut it out? I'm talking cave man levels of technology here so even assuming you could get a vine and a stick pin, you could draw a circle on the ground or on a bit of wood, but then how would you cut one with any sort of accuracy? Not that I suppose it would have to be 100% true, but even close enough to use for making other things.
AJS- said:
But how would you cut it out? I'm talking cave man levels of technology here so even assuming you could get a vine and a stick pin, you could draw a circle on the ground or on a bit of wood, but then how would you cut one with any sort of accuracy? Not that I suppose it would have to be 100% true, but even close enough to use for making other things.
Wait for the aliens - they'll bring laser cutters and all sorts of cool stuff just as they did for the Egyptians 
AJS- said:
But how would you cut it out? I'm talking cave man levels of technology here so even assuming you could get a vine and a stick pin, you could draw a circle on the ground or on a bit of wood, but then how would you cut one with any sort of accuracy? Not that I suppose it would have to be 100% true, but even close enough to use for making other things.
Flint to cut with and guessing you would just use the straightest sticks you could find to start with
I had no idea there would be an Association of Pole Lathe Turners
http://www.bodgers.org.uk/index.php
I want to build one now
http://www.bodgers.org.uk/index.php
I want to build one now
after a few iterations with that device in the picture above, you should be able to make perfectly round pieces of wood from which you can make other round items .. anything that rotate an equal distance from the centre will be round .. ellipses are much much harder and require some maths.
Bodging:
Bodging is the traditional craft of a creating chair legs and braces. A chair-bodger works with green-wood using portable tools including a pole-lathe to turn chair legs and such.
Thus bodgers made the first round things from wood. The modern use of the word is very different, of course.
But your first tool would still need to be something sharp, possibly a flint knife.
Bodging is the traditional craft of a creating chair legs and braces. A chair-bodger works with green-wood using portable tools including a pole-lathe to turn chair legs and such.
Thus bodgers made the first round things from wood. The modern use of the word is very different, of course.
But your first tool would still need to be something sharp, possibly a flint knife.
The caveman in the following should give you an idea of how to make a round thing and how to put it to good use!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSYew5yqlIw&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSYew5yqlIw&fea...
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