• @tallwookie
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        251 year ago

        they’d probably have non-shitty copper by then, but magnets? thems witchcraft

        • PancakeLegend
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          301 year ago

          And don’t forget that you need to demonstrate that it’s producing a current. Just get a light bulb, right??

          • @tallwookie
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            71 year ago

            probably go with a hand-crank zapper or something. it’s tricky to do much without resistors and capacitors.

          • @[email protected]
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            51 year ago

            If you can make a generator you can make a motor, just connect them together and have one move when you spin the other

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            Plating a metal object with a different metal would probably be the simplest, impressive thing. Or just heating a thin wire?

        • @kmkz_ninja
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          201 year ago

          Depends on if Ea-nasir was still in business.

          • @tallwookie
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            51 year ago

            really? isnt it just forcing/extruding hot metal through a die?

            • IWantToFuckSpez
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              1 year ago

              How would you buy copper with no money? It’s not like you can exchange your modern money to their currency. So first you need to find a job and any good paying job is probably protected by guilds and you don’t even speak their language so good luck finding a mentor who will offer an apprenticeship. You will be a peasant. Nothing more than a subsistence farmer who has to rent the land and give half his yield to the local lord. Hunting? Killing anything bigger than a fowl will get you in trouble since big game is property of the lord.

              Also copper ore doesn’t lie freely on the ground. You need to mine for that shit and be lucky that there is a source in the vicinity, since you can’t travel very far. Can’t buy a horse with no money.

              And if you found a source you need to convince an entire community to help you mine for copper. You sure as hell can’t do it alone. Good luck convincing them when everyone is busy tending their crops to prepare for the winter. And you don’t even speak their language.

              • @[email protected]
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                41 year ago

                I imagine that the best way to make money would be if you manage to build a rm rudimentary still.

                I feel like moonshine would be relatively easy to do and a great way to make profit of no one kills you before.

                Distilled alcohol is quite rudimentary to produce but only appeared late in history. Plus it is great for leisure application, food conservation or medicine.

                • Flying SquidM
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                  11 year ago

                  How do you get the materials for a still with no money?

                  • @Intralexical
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                    11 year ago

                    Surely you’ve got a pot or something to cook your food in, right? Stick a leaf or a hollow log over it or whatever. Seriously… Money is fake, and literally everything is materials.

              • @tallwookie
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                11 year ago

                i guess that if we’re going to go the fantasy route, then I’d just steal everything I needed - the strong do as they please and the weak submit, after all. violence is the only language I’d need to speak

              • @Intralexical
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                11 year ago

                Good luck convincing them when everyone is busy tending their crops to prepare for the winter.

                Just sprinkle some bird poop or bat guano or whatever other nitrogen and phosphorus-rich gunk onto it when they aren’t looking.

            • @Alteon
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              81 year ago

              How do you make the die?

              • @tallwookie
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                01 year ago

                1st century? probably with diamonds.

              • QuinceDaPence
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                01 year ago

                Big-ass piece of cast iron with a little hole in it.

                If you can convince them you know the end product I’m sure the king can point you to his metal workers and in a lot of cases come up with a solution.

                Also, it’s labor intensive but I think you can beat it into wire or use some other methods.

                If the king says to the blacksmith “make that copper long ans skinny” he can probably make it happen.

                • subversive_dev
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                  11 year ago

                  What tools do you use to precisely work cast iron into a small hole to create your die?

            • @[email protected]
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              71 year ago

              Don’t forget it’ll need to be covered with an insulator, else your coils would short circuit and not producing any current. So you’ll need some chemistry to produce insulator thin enough to create your generator.

            • @[email protected]
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              31 year ago

              It is, but the ancient method is tedious as fuck. It was basically just pulling a piece through dozen of gradually smaller holes, by hand. I dont think you could do one pass extrusion without all of the precision machinery needed to manufacture such machine. But I aint a blacksmith, I just saw the process in some documentary a while ago.

        • @frostwhitewolf
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          41 year ago

          Probably easier to use a lemon and copper plates. Not sure what you’d connect to it though

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            Bring a live translation device, and program it with whatever the expected language is. That alone would be magic to them. And you don;t need to go to a copper mine, there were markets for processed copper. Pulling it into wire is just a case of roughly forming it into a cylinder, then pulling that cylinder through successively smaller holes. A local smith could help you with that.

            • Flying SquidM
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              31 year ago

              And then hope they don’t kill you for being a witch.

            • @cogman
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              91 year ago

              What do you think copper ore looks like? What tools would you use?

              Ancient mining was a punishment, generally a death sentence. It’s hard work often overseen by a slave master.

              Copper ore isn’t concentrated copper either a lot of ore goes into a little copper. There’s a reason only the really wealthy had copper items.

      • @[email protected]
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        -121 year ago

        You can induce voltage on more than just copper you know. Or maybe you don’t know. You probably don’t know.

        • @cogman
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          141 year ago

          Ever wonder why it goes bronze age and then iron age? It’s because it’s a minor miracle humanity discovered how to smelt iron. Iron requires temperatures higher than you can achieve with just wood. Iron absorbs carbon and sulfur making it worthless (in the wrong mixtures).

          The process is complex and resource intensive.

          Assuming a bronze age civilization, copper or tin is the best you can hope for. Finding a magnet is going to be difficult because there’s not really ferromagnetic materials available. In the modern era the most common material is iron.