Arthur C. Clark once said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". What technologies do we have today that would look like magic to people from the past?
I think lasers are pretty wack when you think about them through this lens. A small, wand-like object in your hand can make light appear from seemingly nowhere. If it's powerful enough it can set things on fire or blind people. Not to mention larger ones like laser cutters or the LLD, used to destroy missiles midflight. Thats sure to blow some feudal peasant minds
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Try explaining titanium bone implants or the process of getting metallic aluminum to a Sumerian coppersmith
Especially if he's just been sold the wrong grade of copper.
Brb leaving a 1 star yelp review for Ea Nasir
Ea: Ruin everything.
I like that reference
Try explaining heroin addicts stripping copper wire from houses to Ea Nasir.
Even something as simple as arc welding or an EAF would seem pretty magical. Harnessing lightning to melt metal.
Try explaining to a bronze age healer that we can fix people's medical problems with surgery while they're unconscious and deal with their pain afterwards with medication.
For the latter one that wouldn’t be shocking. Opium poppies because widespread crops in the Bronze Age. I’ve even heard a classicist say that it’s theoretically possible that some Bronze Age healer in Egypt could’ve developed a secret formula for painkillers that was just morphine as the non poppy ingredients were able to be harvested using the trade routes and technology of the era.
I think what might be more surprising is that we can consistently knock patients out for surgery without much risk of death and that we can stop people from dying after they’ve overdosed on opiates (though idk how hard it is to od on smoked opium).
And in the medical field try explaining to a plague doctor that the bubonic plague is a mild inconvenience to all but the poorest people today and can be cured with inexpensive pills.
Ok, fair enough. But I thought of another one- even into the 20th century, a huge number of battlefield injuries were automatic amputations. We don't necessarily have to do that now in a lot of the same injuries.