Tools never die ... never

Ballista, scorpio exist only in re-enactments and are far from the functionality of the originals. The originals required human hair, it was the springiest, had to be processed very particularly and it's very labor intensive to recreate, so re-enactors have not. Their historical range is ~400 meters, replicas do ~150.<p>Complicated specialized tech made in large urban populations is the place to look. Many things went extinct only to be reinvented once large urban populations arose again. But sometimes there was alternative technology, people did not remake the ballista because there were guns by the time urban populations bounced back in Europe.<p>Greek fire, Roman concrete, Egyptian concrete lost and reinvented. Damascus steel - exact process lost, Japanese made something similar. Egyptian block built ships are lost <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/building-pharaohs-ship.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/building-pharaohs-ship....</a> but ships for the same purpose were reinvented and drastically better. We don't use large wooden ships today, except for re-enactments. Siege towers not used, city walls not built, but we have tanks and trenches.<p>So it depends on how you categorize it. Functionality of tools remains, but some specifics are drastically different, so it gets subjective.

I think the more interesting discussion (and where I hopped this was going) was that tools never die, they just evolve.<p>For all of his examples he was able to come up with some trivial example of some near-extinct culture in some very small part of the world using them. But for instance the chariot wheel EVOLVED into the automobile wheel, hammers evolved into jackhammers and hammerdrills (and just plain hammers), brass helmets into motorcycle helmets.<p>I think finding a tool that is no longer used and has no "children" would be the truly interesting find. If a tool is used to serve a purpose and solve a problem, are there any categories of problems that we simply don't run into anymore?<p>And for the people talking about parts for '87 chevy's and IDEs or dead software projects, I think you're taking his point far too literally.

One I remember being fascinated about from Latin class: the Antikythera Mechanism[1].<p>EDIT: Others include Roman cement, which was <i>masterfully</i> produced by them. It's the reason so many of their structures and amazingly engineered roads are still around today, millenia later.<p>[1]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism</a>

Seems lots of ancient medicines and herbal plants with special effects were lost like Silphium[1] and Nepenthe[2].<p>Who knows what other amazing things perished with the Library of Alexandria[3], House of Wisdom in Baghdad[4], Library of Pergamum[5], and Imperial Library of Constantinople[6]?<p>[1]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium</a> [2]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepenthe" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepenthe</a> [3]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria</a> [4]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom</a> [5]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Pergamum" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Pergamum</a> [6]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Library_of_Constantinople" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Library_of_Constantino...</a>

My understanding is that we can't rebuild a certain gel that's used in some older nuclear weapons, because we've lost all of the formulas, all of the production processes, and the handful of people who had both the scientific understanding of the stuff and the clearance.<p>Has anyone else heard this story, and can they back it up with a real source?

The best bet would probably be a tool used in a now dead religion. For example, a tool specifically design to force a live fish down the throat of a duck to appease kurlog, god of pond boats.

Greek fire (unless you want to count napalm as the same thing).

Damascus steel.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel</a><p>I'm sure there's tons of tools that are extinct and no surviving record of them exists, so we don't know about them. In that sense, you could say it's all a matter of documentation. If something doesn't exist at a given moment but is documented, it's likely that it will be made again at some point.

I would have gone for something big and expensive, like, say, the lunar module. Is anyone making a new lunar module or a hydrogen dirigible these days?

I was going to suggest the physicians head mirror (the one with a hole), except <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_mirror" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_mirror</a> says "They are still routinely used by otolaryngologists in the clinical setting, particularly for examination and procedures involving the oral cavity."

"I tried ... Paleolithic hammers (still being made) ...". OK this is too good to be true. I googled and it IS available, for $230: <a href="http://www.stoneageartifacts.com/html/Artifact-Hand%20Axes.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.stoneageartifacts.com/html/Artifact-Hand%20Axes.h...</a>. It is mind boggling who buys these things.

I'm currently reading Kevin Kelley's book and am enjoying it, but I find his "technology NEVER dies" conjecture mostly uninteresting. I guess it's a strong enough statement that it begs for disproof, but I haven't heard any interesting conclusions that rely on it.

OK guys, this smells like a challenge. Can anyone think of a tool which has been made extinct?

How about the tool used to weld a metal link around a prisoner or slave's ankle?<p>I can't imagine anyone still knows how to do that. (But I'm semi expecting to be proved wrong.)

I heard this on the radio on the way to work this morning. The obvious thing that came to mind was the technology used to build the pyramids.

There is a bit of a survivor bias in this challenge, as the tools that are no longer being made corresponds well to tools which nobody remembers.

The problem here is not asking a clear question. There are millions or billions of tools that are no longer being built today. I made one just now as I was writing this post, it will never be built again.<p>Yes it is a cute conclusion, it outlines an interesting social phenomenon. But 'Tools never die' is not correct.<p>Also, Fred's steam engine is no longer built, it was unique, if you show me steam engines, it is not Fred's steam engine.

<a href="http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/quackcures/radiumemanator.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/quackcures/radiumemanator...</a><p>I give you the radium emanator, a device used to infuse water with the healthy radiation from radium. From the link, "It appears to have been made from cement mixed with uranium ore."<p>Needless to say, it was never a good idea, and the use of this tool died out with the end of the radium fad and, presumably, more than a few of the fad's adherents.<p>I will be very surprised if <i>anyone</i> was still making this or something to do the same thing.

Williams-Kilburn tubes, which were CRTs with high-persistence phosphor used as memory and display devices beginning in the 1940s. The 'high-persistence' means W-K tubes are the exact <i>opposite</i> of where CRT technology stands today: They're useless for TVs and computer monitors, because the phosphor stays lit too long. However, that's what you want if you're using the phosphor to store bits of data in a vacuum tube computer, or to display the contents of memory in that computer.<p>Plenty of people are making CRTs today. I doubt anyone is making CRTs that would be useful W-K tubes.<p>(Another guess might be core memory but, knowing NASA and some of IBM's customers, I have a suspicion someone still has real uses for a few hundred kilobytes of core.)<p>[as originally posted by me elsewhere]