• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Inventions of the Middle Ages

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
6 Important Things That Were Invented During the Middle Ages

A short list of 6 inventions that we can trace the origins of to the Middle Ages.

So, liquor was invented during the Middle Ages. And the hour glass.

bill_and_ted.jpg
 

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
They saved the best till last there, with the printing press. If any piece of technology revolutionised human development, that one did. Sent tremors through the political and religious establishments of Renaissance Europe, scared the hell out of Kings and Bishops.
 

Regiomontanus

Ματαιοδοξία ματαιοδοξιών! Όλα είναι ματαιοδοξία.
Many neat things developed then! One of the more well known brains in the west- Fibonacci!

Fibonacci - Biography

* introduced the Hindu-Arabic place-valued decimal system and the use of Arabic numerals into Europe.

* Fibonacci sequence
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
The escapement mechanism for clocks was invented around 1200 AD. At first, it wasn't as useful because it needed a pendulum to mark off the time, and *other* types of mechanical clocks were around previously, but the escapement mechanism is what made time keeping much more precise.

An appropriate harness for horses so they could replace oxen in the fields was an invention of the early middle ages. This lead to more productive fields.

While various forms of alcoholic drinks were known very early on, the process of distillation to produce whiskey or brandy was not known before the middle ages.

Prior to the middle ages, the water wheels tended to be undershot. The overshot waterwheel became the norm in the middle ages.

A great deal of experimentation in alchemy lead to inventions that would later be used for chemistry.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Many neat things developed then! One of the more well known brains in the west- Fibonacci!

Fibonacci - Biography

* introduced the Hindu-Arabic place-valued decimal system and the use of Arabic numerals into Europe.

* Fibonacci sequence


A much less well-known mathematician, the monk Nicole Oresme, did basic work with fractional exponents in the 14th century. Some of his ideas were clear precursors to those of Galileo (including an analysis of motion under constant acceleration and the first use of graphs).
 

Regiomontanus

Ματαιοδοξία ματαιοδοξιών! Όλα είναι ματαιοδοξία.
A much less well-known mathematician, the monk Nicole Oresme, did basic work with fractional exponents in the 14th century. Some of his ideas were clear precursors to those of Galileo (including an analysis of motion under constant acceleration and the first use of graphs).

Oh yes, and there were of course others. And we have a western bias when we say 'middle ages' but we know that further east there was quite a bit going on.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Oh yes, and there were of course others. And we have a western bias when we say 'middle ages' but we know that further east there was quite a bit going on.

Oh, absolutely. Al' Haytham did some groundbreaking work in optics and mathematics. he could be considered one of the first true scientists, replying on observation to test his hypotheses.

Al' Baghdadi was the first to use a 'number line' in about 1000 AD. Previously, number (discrete) and geometry (continuous) were considered separate realms.

Al' Samawal did groundbreaking work on polynomials and decimal calculations.

Umar Kayyami (Omar Kayyam) did good work on cubic equations.

The list of other Arabic and Islamic mathematicians and natural philosophers is very long and a number of advanes were made during that time period that were later transferred to Europe during the translation movement in the 11th and 12th centuries.
 
Top