What single piece of modern technology could be sent back in time to the Roman empire to ensure that the imperium would...

shit, the proper names Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica apparently, not the one I named, I meant give them Newtons study of calculus and gravity

Relative to their time the Romans certainly weren't lacking in the mathematics department and I'm not sure how a furthered understanding of mathematic principles would make any immense contribution to their empire save for improving upon their already advanced infrastructure.They aren't trying to send a rocket to the moon here.

A system of government with built-in safeguards to ensure that the transfer of power between individuals is always a peaceful one.

user I think you need to read up on how much calculus is actually used for
>Calculus is used in every branch of the physical sciences, actuarial science, computer science, statistics, engineering, economics, business, medicine, demography, and in other fields wherever a problem can be mathematically modeled and an optimal solution is desired. It allows one to go from (non-constant) rates of change to the total change or vice versa, and many times in studying a problem we know one and are trying to find the other.

Pipes without fucking lead

Useless at the time. You can't accurately report position when modern ideas of cartography don't even exist. Ancient "maps" are equal parts fucking hilarious and useless.

List some ways abstract mathematical thought would help achieve the aforementioned goal of a Roman empire spanning from Spain to Korea.

>relying on them to reverse engineer.
>Rome
I wouldn't be too worried they're pretty much the real Goa'uld anything they couldn't invent themselves they stole it should be fine.

A very large and expansive volume on naval shipbuilding and navigation techniques and tools through history translated to latin.

Being able to sail through a storm relatively safely would revolutionize the economy overnight. Being able to transit straight across the med from Egypt to Rome quickly and safely without constant stops would do wonders to quell food supply issues, allow troops to move faster, and information to flow quicker.

Surely some concept of pinpointing locations would arise. Even rudimentary messages like "hey guys the fucking huns are coming" would've helped a lot. Think about how long it would take for that information to reach Rome otherwise.

Dildos

Thank you.

They plenty of those already

>Surely some concept of pinpointing locations would arise.
How?

They DO NOT have the capacity to place pins in a map. Romans, and virtually everyone else, traveled by itinerary.

I've seen byzantine maps. they are genuinely humorous, and utterly useless for anything more complex than "the sassanids are east of constantinople."

People have leveled entirely reasonable arguments that Romans weren't even able to think in cartographic terms.

Radios would somewhat improve battlefield communication, and do very little for the issues that caused the empire to rot.

To illustrate:
Go the this link.
infilled.net/Ancient_Maps.html
Look at the roman maps.

Accurate maps weren't even really a concept to them. Using radios the way we do now would be nearly impossible. The eastern empire would possibly, maybe, benefit immensely in its later wars after the west had fallen, but would likely still fall apart anyway.

Because the very nature of the radio would call for it, and the Romans would have realized the incredible potential in creating a system that resembled modern techniques of pinpointing locations on a map.

The Romans had such a hard-on for logistics that given the opportunity there's no way in hell they would pass this up. The advent of radio would crank efficiency up to 11 in nearly every aspect. You don't have to be a fucking genius in realizing the opportunity to be had in being able to communicate across vast distances as easily as it'd be with modern radio equipment. Obviously this entire discussion is hypothetical but insinuating that the Romans wouldn't be able to work out a system to complement radio technology is supercilious.

Also
>radios would somewhat improve battlefield communication

do you think airplanes would somewhat improve air travel as well?

nukes

This one seems alright. Although the earlier one looks like ass.

Radios do jack shit for battlefield communication when you're fighting in the era of massive, vision impairing dust clouds. Modern forces can see better than ancients could ever hope to simply because they don't mass thousands of men into a tiny area and churn up dirt before even getting into contact.

Radios would be useful for keeping separate battles in a column moving in a coordinated fashion and aware of ambushes. the simple nature of war at the time means they won't be able to do as much in the pitched battle that the empire tended to fight.

It's the least shit of them all, and yet britain is sideways.

Now look up the Tabula Peutingeriana and prepare to WUT.

A copy of the Fountainhead translated to latin

I feel the telegram would be a lot more useful. Allows for limitless expansion without disintegration. A lot of historians of the American west argue that California would have maybe seceded had the telegram and railroad system not reached it.

Has anyone ever thought what would happen if a random music video or song was shown to the leaders of any ancient/medieval civilization? Like how would history be changed if Genghis Khan was randomly shown this
youtube.com/watch?v=L_fCqg92qks

damn they discovered antarctica

They'd probably just find it bizarre. Ancient music is so far off from modern that it's genuinely hard to explain. Anything but the most base pop/rap shit would likely strike them as dense as shit and hard to follow at all.

This is the sort of quality posting that keeps me coming back.

...

The plow

Preservatives

Industrial production lines for most goods.

I'd give them true roman sliced bread for true romans.

I'd teach them about proper sanitation

I don't see how they couldn't wrap their heads around this a reproduce/apply it.

And*

The only correct answer is hand cranked radios.

add on to this a detailed topographical map of the Med region and a basic printing press.

mein kampf in 116 AD

Romans weren't fans of germans.

I was thinking a book on economics
a book on how to make a gun from scratch

You're all fucking idiots, the real answer is electricity.

You all keep bringing up weapons and radios and manufactured stuff but that all needs electricity to work so there you have it, wa la

not everything needs electricity you fuckwit. including your mums kick-start vibrator

Steam engin is more practical

What exactly would you hook up this electricity to if industrial production is a foreign concept.

They needed better ideas on how to rule and have competent leaders before they could go expanding. They need to get shit like the praetorian guard under control as well.

>Tabula Peutingeriana
That's like saying that the London Underground map represents British 20th century mapping as a whole.

An extensive book or collection of books on world history

PC solar Powered with full of scientific knowledge data

Gunpowder, the blast furnace, a useful steam engine, and the germ theory of disease.

this

and this

and this

and this.

Rome needed to:

a) be ruled better
b)have a solvent economy that wasn't prey to deficiencies in coin and inflation
c)have a way of dealing with the plagues from the east and guaranteeing living standards
d)actually know how to travel the long distances of it's own territory in practical times

who needs electricity and radio? there's so much else to do before it becomes useful, something like lighthouses to transmit a morse code would be easier to implement as a long distance comunication system.

giving them the indian numerals, a few letters like the J, the W and the U, and a more precise calendar system would make their lifes much easier, teach them about those pesky stirrups, some renewable agricultural techniques, maybe gunpowder and some other basic, practical inventions they could implement easily instead of vague theories that would require extensive overhauls of their society.

you think ur so smart huh

Came here to post this. Further, doesn't require the invention of fucking batteries like the radio.

literally all you need is stirrups

how far do you want to take it? I think if the romans had an A-10 Thunderbolt II they would have done pretty well but that's stupid.

a more reasonable answer would be the schematics to build early firearms and a treatise on how to use them effectively.

The internal combustion engine and schematics.

the internet

penicilin

/Thread

What are they gonna do about replacing tires?
Don't get me wrong, a good bike lets you go up and down mountains and through jungles with relative ease, but they weren't invented until the industrial age for a reason, broseph.

MEMES! THEY NEEDED MEMES!

Imagine a world of Advanced Roman Memetic Warfare travelling as far as around the globe and into outer space! They would keep control of their populations so easily with this next technology.

We could take the reddit use base and make them consume rohypnol and then throw them into DaVincis "ay ista Taime Mashean-a!" and have them working for the Roman Empire with memetics.

I highly doubt the plebeians would care about anything important if they had their sets of meme-scrolls.

>YOVR MOM
*picture*
>DELENDA EST BY MVH DICK

/thread

The Prince

No intelligent answers in my thread.

A book of how feudal societies function so that they could reform their government and economic system so that they would be years ahead of every other country of the time and have a better capacity to stabilize their empire.

Runners up: Penicillin, gunpowder with break-action rifles, steam engines, and stirrups.

gas chambers for the germanics

gunpowder.

Lead pipes are a meme
When they wear n they are fine

A history of Monetary policy in the United States

>Titus! It looks like they imported something called a "toaster". It would also appear they sucked Arabia Petraea's dick for oil they hid under the sand!"
>"What a useless legacy. Use the book for kindle."

ROMA
ORAM
MARO
AMOR

a sterling engine?

Nothing ITT would work. It would just cause mass balkanisation and decentralisation because the Roman Empire would be unable to respond to the sudden, massive infrastructural shift.

An extensive history of the Roman Empire in latin.

Not quite.

That's "Antichthon" (Greek Counter-Earth), a theory by Philolaus (and Aristotle) that earth has a counterpart of sorts, originally rotating opposite of the sun, never visible.

The theory was later (around 0 AD, I think) changed to a sort of counter-landmass in the south supposedly "balancing out" the landmass in the northern hemisphere. Nobody had ever explored Africa beyond the Sahara.

That's why the name says "Antichthones?" - they didn't know and put a question mark.

what about balloons?

yes as a matter of fact i believe i have an outstanding intellect.

a Feudal Rome would be weaker in every way, militarily, it would never achieve the same level of uniform dicipline and professionalism if it was up to each lord to form the legions as they saw fit, economically, the switch from tax to labor in vassalage relations and the lack of big enterprise that could power an industry apart from the strictly agrarian economy would mean its less wealthy and less bountiful territories would collapse, and the lack of political centralization would lead to an overall weaker and more unstable government.

you know, exactly like how it happened by the fourth century.

Grenades

what if they put on wheels on these things and change oars for pedals

Literally just the ability to make muskets and gunpowder, and they would rule the world.

A cache of books on metallurgy, mathematics, mechanics, medicine and economics.

Condoms or Penicilline.

It would probably have to be a ship of some kind. They really didn't need help with much on land, but had they been able to successfully travel to the Americas the world might have shaped up very differently.