Way back in the day there was this library, right? Like, the first big library in EVER. 400 BC or somesuch. Anyhoo, it was a great library, held all the important books in the world. It was in Alexandrea (one of 'em- lots of cities by that name) and every time a boat would come to port the librarians would seize the ship and take all the books off, take them to the library, copy them by hand, and return the copies to the ship. So all the books were at this library. So all the smart people would gather there and read and write and talk and shit.
So in 400BC there was this one special librarian. The head librarians were, in practice, the smartest persons in the world. This time it was Hypatia. A woman. Well, the local priests didn't like her, all walkin' around town, talking to whoever the fuck she wanted.... generally acting like a man. He was pissed as hell (the bishop. head priest. whatever.). So this Bishop decides one day to kill her. He rounds up a group of monks and on her way home from work they attack her. They beat her with clubs and skinned her alive with oyster shells (yeesh!). Then they burned her at the stake.
Then they burned the library.
With the origional copies and many times ONLY copies of all the really good, important, intellectual books in the world.
Yeeaaahhh.
Bad idea guys. What we have found out is that people were getting a pretty good thumb on things back then. They had already developed calculus (later figured out in the 1600's by Newton in a barn). They already figured out the dimensions of the Earth. They had already solved the Heliocentric solorsystem problem (a partial copy of the proof written survived and Copernicus found it and THEN developed his arguments. He's nothing too damned special.)
It makes you wonder... we lost a thousand years of knowledge in that fire. It took a THOUSAND years before we were all caught up. What if there had been no fire? What if there had been other copies? What is it we COULD be knowing RIGHT NOW?
Curious...
