A reminder that simple inventions are still possible.
replies(1):
An interesting one is the bicycle. The bicycle we all know (safety bicycle) is deceivingly advanced technology, with pneumatic tires, metal tube frame, chain and sprocket, etc... there is no way it could have been done much earlier. It needs precision manufacturing as well as strong and lightweight materials for such a "simple" idea to make sense.
It also works for science, for example, general relativity would have never been discovered if it wasn't for precise measurements as the problem with Newtonian gravity would have never been apparent. And precise measurement requires precise instrument, which require precise manufacturing, which require good materials, etc...
For this pyramid, not only the physical part required advanced manufacturing, but they did a computer search for the shape, and a computer is the ultimate precision manufacturing, we are working at the atom level here!
- I've ridden a bike with a bamboo frame - it worked fine, but I don't think it was very durable.
- I've seen a video of a belt- (rather than chain-) driven bike - the builder did not recommend.
You maybe get there a couple of decades sooner with a bamboo penny-farthing, but whatever you build relies on smooth roads and light-weight wheels. You don't get all of the tech and infrastructure lining up until late-nineteenth c. Europe.