World War related bickering

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#221

Semantics? For crying out loud. We are discussing facts, not fantasy.Semantics are worthless in discussing facts. You Brit types try to pull a lot of that in here, whenever anything non-British turns up. :roll: You’d argue that rocks in Florida are British if they looked like the ones in Dover.You are about to shoot yourself in the foot.

The common use definition of the word “greatest” is what you’re playing with now, but since you can’t change that, your semantics are negated.

No, but that is what you are about to do, as you Brit types always do in your attempt to make all things magically British. Cock the trigger now.

So were the British? So, because great engineering has been seen in many other nations in modern history, the Romans did not create the foundations for many of the engineering principles that gave birth to them? Ahhh! More “all things are British” eh? You are trying to pull a rabbit from a hat. Come back to Earth. Don’t pull the trigger quite yet.

Invented by Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD.

BANG! Did it hurt? Cock it again.
More “all things are British” again eh? Your twisted logic would make the English language not English at all. I guess the US dwarfs Britain then, because it’s innovations AND ALL OF THIER OFFSPRING (like the microwave oven in your kitchen) make America the greatest? You are leaving the Solar Sytstem. Come back.

BANG! That had to hurt Cock it again though.
Trying to disqualify the advancements of the Romans by using aesthetics as the greater MEASURE OF ENGINEERING than the mechanical, geometric, and mathematical eh? Puleeeeez! Come back to Earth.

You did not mention the most important one: Thales of Miletus, the father of philosophy. BTW, I studied philosophy in college myself. I guess you did not. :wink:

Vanguard University, World Civilizations I
“List the major contributions of Rome in drama, history, philosophy, poetry, science, and law.”
http://www.vanguard.edu/Theatrearts/index.aspx?doc_id=1784

University of Mississippi, Undergradute Course Catalog
“308. SURVEY OF ROMAN LITERATURE. Reading in English translation of important works in the literature of Rome; Roman contributions to the development of European and English literature. (3).”

Valparaiso University
“There was not, however, a clean break between Greek intellectual thought and Roman intellectual thought; instead there was a gradual transition.”
http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/geo/courses/geo466/topics/greco_rom.html

Bang! Cock it once more.
Since you didn’t study philosphy in college, I’ll give you a tip, since I did: Greek philosphy laid the foundations for philosophy. That is the Greek (albeit important) contribution. It was the Romans who made the contribution to the world of developing philosophy and revealed it’s significance to religion, litterature, government, citizenship, ethics, military, science, aesthetics, sexuality, art, etc.

BANG! You must be in serious pain by now.
Hell, the US build a railroad that spanned the entire width of the North American continent over 100 years ago too. The US has also built many times more miles of roads than any empire in history, Britain included. Does that make the US greater than Rome in contributing the principles of public works? Ofcourse not. Come back to Earth.

Bang! Damn dude. It’s looking real bad that foot of yours.
The Romans managed records and accounts on a huge scale and established the importance of such practices, even using libraries for their records and legal “books”. They did not do that in Sumeria, or Egypt either.

Who said English law was based on Roman law? Although, some of the precepts of English law did in fact come from Roman law. However, Roman Law, which you are trying to negate ( :roll: ) was one of Rome’s great contributions to the world:

Encyclopædia Britannica
“As a legal system, Roman law has affected the development of law in most of Western civilization as well as in parts of the East. It forms the basis for the law codes of most countries.”
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9108633

Peter Stein, University of Cambridge
“Roman Law in European History is unparalleled in lucidity and authority, and should prove of enormous utility for teachers and students (at all levels) of legal history, comparative law and European Studies.”

Harvard University
“They are an introductory textbook of Roman law. In 534 the Commission published the Codex Justiniani, a compilation of material from imperial decisions and enactments. These three works, along with the Novellae, a collection of laws promulgated after the Codex, constitute the Corpus juris civilis, the source of law and judicial reasoning for much of Europe from the 12th century onwards.”
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~history/resources/primary/special/law/strengths.html

Professor Susanna Fischer, The Catholic University of America
“John Henry Merryman has stated: “Roman law is often said to be the greatest contribution that Rome has made to Western civilization.” The Romans (through jurisconsults) were the first to look at law as a kind of science for ordering the world, including people and property and their relationships. Heritage of Roman law lives on today in many modern legal systems of the world.”

Bang! You’d better switch feet now.

:lol: No, it left a number of developments and principles that formed the basis for much of the world. Britain did not do that.

BANG! BANG! Two rounds for blathering such flubber to try to negate the above fact.

Ofcourse we do! Like most Brits, you think everything significant in the world came from England. But we have seen right here, that Rome established principles that have created a legacy that makes it the greatest empire in history. You have made a futile attempt to turn the Roman contributions to the world into British ones. And you have shot yourself in the foot repeatedly.[/quote]

Firstly, the words “largest” and “greatest” mean the same thing.
The fact that “greatest” has other meanings does not negate the prime definition.
Live with it.
My original post merely remarked the fact that the British Empire was the first to be dismantled with the consent and assistance of the ruling power.
Just that, nothing else.
You were the one who attempted to turn it into a contest between the Roman and British Empires.
As I said, I would never attempt to denigrate the achievements of the Romans.
They were not, however, always the innovators you make them out to be, but very skilled developers.
Their architecture was based largely on the Greek, models of which they had standing about them for study.
The Greek originals were just that, original.
My remark with regard to aesthetics referred, as you well know, to architecture, not to engineering.
Unless, of course, you consider architecture to be merely the application of engineering principles?
As for public works, I said nothing to remotely suggest that the Romans did not carry out such works on the scale stated.
I simply recorded that the British Empire did the same wherever it existed.
As for accounting, scale does not equate with innovation.
And Roman Law. who said English Law was based on it?
Ah yes, that would be you.
Quote "(British law is based upon Roman law, and it’s language is greatly influenced by Latin). "
Again, I never tried to “negate” Roman Law.
I simply pointed out that English Law is not, in fact, based on it.
In short, I am not trying to claim any of the Roman achievements as British, nor suggesting that the Roman Empire was not a remarkable construct with a lasting legacy.
The fact remains, however, that on its collapse the western world as it then existed sank into 400 years of chaos.
As for the legacy of the British Empire, as I say, only time will tell.
The fact remains, however, that if you have to go to court tomorrow, you will be tried under what is effectively English Law, not Roman Law.
The language we are having this debate in is English, not Latin.
And the democracies existing in Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand and many other countries are based on the British model.
Before shooting your own foot, I suggest you remove it from your mouth.

#222

The Arches in Cathedrals are largely Norman - as htey look nicer and allow for fan vaulting which is more impressive and supports higher wider celings.

#223

Like most Brits, you think everything significant in the world came from England.

No. The Scots think that the only significant thing to come from England is the longbow, or they’d still be independent. The Welsh disagree with the English on principle. I don’t presume to speak for any Northern Irish as it’s not covered by my heath insurance. But, as a citizen (I’d prefer to be a subject, but that’s another matter) of the dominant country in a Union that was the centre of the most populous Empire the world has ever seen, the Englishman does not need to make such bold claims. He can content himself with the proud legacy of the Empire and its Commonwealth.

God Save the Queen!

#224

Semantics? For crying out loud. We are discussing facts, not fantasy.Semantics are worthless in discussing facts. [/quote]

semantics

• plural noun usu. treated as sing. 1 the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. 2 the meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, or text.

Just how does anyone discuss facts when they can’t agree the meaning of the words they are using?
Semantics are fundamental to any discussion.

#225

Invented by Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD.

Not really, Hero’s engine was on a completely different principle that was closer to the steam-turbine than the low and high pressure piston engines invented in Britain. It is doubtfull whether the late 17th and early 18th century pioneers had even heard of Hero, regardless the Savery and Newcomen engines used a completely different principle to the “rotary kettle” that Hero came up with and became the first practical and accepted steam engines, although Sir Thos. Morland had patented a design in 1675 .
You could perhaps argue that Parsons’ turbine owed something to Hero in that it generates rotary motion from jets of steam but the similarities end there. Hero’s invention was a dead end simply because there was no easy way to add more water to the boiler once it was in motion and no way to control it’s motion until it ran out of water for reaction mass.
The first practical steam locomotive was also British as was the first railway.

The Romans borrowed most of their engineering from others the arch for example being an Etruscan invention, the Romans were however assiduouls in their utilistation of the arch. Otherwise most Roman arctitecture was Greek in origin.

It’s interesting to note that very few actual Romans added anything really new to philosophy and many of the philosophers active in Roman times were Greek and/or pursuing Greek schools of thought, so while they may have been in the Empire their ideas were not Roman. One would not argue that Ghandi’s philosophy was British.

#226

One would not argue that Ghandi’s philosophy was British.

oooooooooh yes you would, wouldnt you IRONMAN :lol:

#227

Got your pistol out? Ready to shoot yourself in the foot?

Just because the arch was developed by the Greeks, does not mean they developed it to a degree that would allow for the building of large arches that support many tons of weight, which made the arch finally a significant development. The Roman arch was the single greatest advancement in architecture for hundreds of years. You are trying to deny that the Romans made such an advance, and it’s just plain silly.

Penn State University
“The Roman arch contains “voussoirs” (voo/swars’), or bricks. The “keystone” is the center voussoir that supports the other bricks. The push or thrust of the cemented voussoirs push outward and downward in the arch. A row of arches is called an “arcade.””

“The Romans ruled much of present-day Europe, the Middle East, and Great Britain (753Before Christ-76After Divinity or 753BC to 76AD). In their spare time between conquering various countries, they managed to invent cement, a mixture of lime, clay, and water. They constructed the rounded arch, commonly called the Roman arch, and perfected it into various forms.”
http://egghead.psu.edu/~ma_tapps/arch/roman.html

Holy guano Batman! Those aren’t Roman Arches and cement that I see are they?

BANG! Did it hurt?

There’s a few Roman developments in to architecture that are truly, truly contributions on a termendous scale. Does your British house have a concrete foundation? I bet it does, thanks to the Romans. And cement is probably the greatest single contribution to architecture of all time.

Obviously, the Romans contributed enough to architecture that they are considered to have made great contributions in the field to the world, so says every university in the world, and as you’ve seen from the universities that I quoted. Now when you know more about history and civilizatuion than they do, let us know.

True, true, even though the Frenchman Denis Papin also made a steam engine before any Englishman. But does that mean then that Rome’s contributions are any less grand? Certainly not. You are trying to compare modern inventions to the contributions the Romans made in the very foundations of science, art, literature, poetry, architecture, law, etc. You’re playing another semantics game. If we go that route, the US has created far more advances in technology and easily eclipses Britain, and if we go by military might, the US’s current power eclipses that of any empire that has ever been. What was that about Britain? Oh yes, it was bigger in size.

BANG! A round for tying to use semantics to demean Rome’s great contributions.

Rome’s contributions changed the world more than those of any empire in the world. So much of what exists today is dependant on or borne from those contributions. That’s why the are the greatest empire that has ever been. Semantics change nothing.

Trying to say the British invented the microwave oven (Ratheon, US) or just playing more semantics?

BANG! Another round for playing semantics and trying to imply that Rome’s great contributions are insignificant because all inventions require a foundation in science. That one had to hurt.

Heh. Yea. See above.

Who said Thales was Roman? Not me. You brought up all those philosphers, not me. I just pointed out that you missed a doosie. However, Thales of Miletus was the father of philosophy. BTW, you failed to mention Anaximander and Anaximenes too. There’s a hilarious story about them. You miss the point completely. However, you can learn about Thales (the Father of Philiosophy) here:
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Thales.html
“Certainly Thales was a figure of enormous prestige, being the only philosopher before Socrates to be among the Seven Sages.”

I have already shown you that the Roman contribution in philosophy was advancing it and showing it’s significance to and applying it to many other important fields. Who invented philosphy is not the point, otherwise all of the universities in the world would not state that one of Rome’s great contributions to the world was philosophy, now would they?

BANG! Another round in your foot for trying to say that because the Romans did not invent philosophy, thier contribution in the field was not tremendously significant.

It left a number of developments and principles that formed the basis for much of the world. Britain did not do that. And these are not the Middle Ages either.

Me? No, I’m not doing that. You are now trying to put words into my mouth!

BANG! BANG! Two rounds in your other foot for that. However, you are playing your semantics again.

If you want to say, “Well, a Brit invented this and that!”, that’s fine. We could both do that all day long. Simply stated, Rome was the greatest empire in history because thier contributions are incomparable to any empire since. Obviously, you fail to understand how far their contributions reached the world. Prior to Rome, civilization was simplistic. It’s too bad you can’t go back in time and walk down the various streets of Rome. Judging by your comments, I think your jaw would drop when you say the public sewer system, the giant arches, running water faucets, schools for art and science, poets reciting in a gathering place for supporters of the arts, lifelike frescos the size of a wall, men debating economic ethics (philosophy?) in a government building, soldiers studying formations, streets with sidewalks and curbs, shops on the corners, lawyers filing papers with the courts, educators pulling scrolls from shelves containing thousands of scrolls, ect.

You are completely clueless if you do not realize how great the contributions made by Rome have been to the world, and how significant it is that those contributions often changed the world during the reign of the Roman Empire. They eclipse that of any empire since.

It is doubtfull, because of the time of the Roman Empire, that any single society will ever make as many significant contributions to the world again. The ones made by Rome, and their tremendous effect on the world, can only be done once in history.

#228

Well, for one thing, concrete was forgotten and re-invented later, likewise sewerage systems.

And semantics are extremely important when arguing with someone who thinks that he is allowed to take existing terminology & change the meaning at will, and thus base his argument on this changed meaning. :wink:

#229

So were electricity and the steam engine. :roll:

Semantics have no value in discussing facts. Philosophy proved that over 1,000 years ago. Here’s an example:

Thales of Miletus:

“To go from place A to place B, you must travel half-way between them first. And once you are half-way, you must again travel half-way from where you are to get to place B. And once you get there, you must still travel half-way from where you are to get to place B. Therefore, I submit to you, that it is impossible to travel anywhere at all!”

I guess you’d have had to have studied philosophy in college to have heard that one.:lol:

Nobody is saying the British Empire was not great. It was. But please, don’t try to compare it to the greatness of Rome. It is defeatist.

Now since a couple of you keep saying Britain was the greatest empire and pointing to the fact that the literal definition of “greatest” means “largest”, do you want to change your claim that Britain was the greatest to Britain was the largest? If not, don’t argue semantics about the common use definition of the word “greatest”. We all know that nobody considers the the word to mean “largest” in reference to the greatness of an empire or almost anything else.

Oh, I forgot to mention the system of weights and measures developed by Rome. It is the basis of the British system. Just thought that would be interesting to know.

Can we now get back to the topic of the thread please?

#230

So were electricity and the steam engine. :roll:

Semantics have no value in discussing facts. Philosophy proved that over 1,000 years ago. Here’s an example:

Thales of Miletus:

“To go from place A to place B, you must travel half-way between them first. And once you are half-way, you must again travel half-way from where you are to get to place B. And once you get there, you must still travel half-way from where you are to get to place B. Therefore, I submit to you, that it is impossible to travel anywhere at all!”

I guess you’d have had to have studied philosophy in college to have heard that one.:lol:

[/quote]
No, you wouldn’t.
You might have had to read a book or two though.
I heard this old chestnut many years ago in what you would call High School.
It has absolutely nothing to do with semantics.
It’s a tongue-in-cheek, flawed postulate in logic, such as any philosophy tutor would pose to have his pupils shoot down.

#231

Once again, an otherwise incoherent argument is only strengthened by constant gun noises.

It’s not possible to make progress in this discussion because IRONMAN’s goalposts are constantly moving. I make no claim of validity on what Rome did with the following, I am merely citing previous examples from this thread. Rome’s contributions show how great Rome is when the Romans either took a previous idea and advanced on it, e.g. the arch, or a developed a new idea that wasn’t useful until further development was done externally, e.g. electricity and the steam engine. Yet, when considering the contribution of the British Empire, it doesn’t count if the vital early science was performed within the Empire and someone else developed the idea, as with the cavity magnetron. Equally, it doesn’t count if someone else had the idea first, but it was made useful by work done within the Empire, such as the steam engine in the self propelled or static form.

I still don’t think it’s possible to compare the two empires directly, for the reasons I’ve posted before. But, I think a strong case has been made that the Roman Empire is not indisputably the greatest empire of all time and that it will bw rather difficult to reach a definitive conclusion.

#232

So were electricity and the steam engine. :roll:

Semantics have no value in discussing facts. Philosophy proved that over 1,000 years ago. Here’s an example:

Thales of Miletus:

“To go from place A to place B, you must travel half-way between them first. And once you are half-way, you must again travel half-way from where you are to get to place B. And once you get there, you must still travel half-way from where you are to get to place B. Therefore, I submit to you, that it is impossible to travel anywhere at all!”

I guess you’d have had to have studied philosophy in college to have heard that one.:lol:

[/quote]
No, you wouldn’t.
You might have had to read a book or two though.
I heard this old chestnut many years ago in what you would call High School.
It has absolutely nothing to do with semantics.
It’s a tongue-in-cheek, flawed postulate in logic, such as any philosophy tutor would pose to have his pupils shoot down.[/quote]

The philisophical enigma that Thales related, and which I quoted, is, like most of what he said, not easily found in books. It was related to me in college by an eccentric professor who wore pants that were 15 years out of fashion, and sat on top of his desk with the room lights off (since the ancient Greeks had no electricity :smiley: ) with his legs crossed, as he lectured. He was a great professor! Are you trying to imply I am a liar by saying that I studied philosophy in college? Are you doing it because you are pissed off that I have shown you that Rome eclipses Britain as the greatest empire in history?

It is not merely “tongue-in-cheek” as you say. It is an argument designed to show that what makes sence to the mind is not necessarily true, and that the meaning of what is said is not always the true meaning of what is:

Thales of Miletus:

“That which is, is. That which is not, is not. To say that which is not is not, is to say that which is not is, which is absurd.”

Did you hear that old “chestnut” too? :lol:

Yes, you have been trying to play semantics.

#233

Thales of Miletus:

“To go from place A to place B, you must travel half-way between them first. And once you are half-way, you must again travel half-way from where you are to get to place B. And once you get there, you must still travel half-way from where you are to get to place B. Therefore, I submit to you, that it is impossible to travel anywhere at all!”

This looks remarkably like one of Zeno’s paradoxes, from about 100 years later. These can be used to demonstrate the problems of pure logic without considering the underlying assumptions or reflecting on the physical significance of the solutions.

The conclusion of the statement is demonstrably false. Thus, either the logic is incorrect, or the assumptions are unrealistic. I’ll go through the logic with various assumptions.

  1. Constant velocity, discrete time intervals.
    To achieve each half interval, your velocity is sampled at time intervals which halve after each sample is taken. Eventually, the time beween samples will become less than the interval between two adjacent time steps, and the sample must be taken every time step, removing the halving and thus the apparent paradox.

  2. Constant Velocity, continuous time.
    Your position is sampled each time that you have covered half the distance since the previous sample. Thus, the time intervals between samples are halved. Eventually, you will cover an infinitesimally small distance in an infinitesimally small unit of time. This is solved using the ‘sum to infinity’, which will bring you to your destination. As intuition suggests, the rate at which your position is sampled between start and finish does not affect the time taken to cover a given distance at a particular speed. Additionally, we see that whether time e continuous or discrete has ne bearing on our arrival.

  3. Arbitrarily varying velocity, continuous time.
    Solving this requires integral calculus (Non mathematicians should think of it like counting squares under a line to find the area, but the squares are tiny). You will reach your destination when the integral of your velocity with respect to time (area under the velocity - time curve) is equal to the distance from start to finish. Again, set the displacement sampling such that your position is sampled every time you halve the distance between your position at the previous sampling point and your destination.
    The only way that you will not arrive is if your velocity is defined such that it becomes zero or negligible before you reach your destination. Then the statement above can be paraphrased to read ‘I can’t reach my destination if I stop before I arrive’, which I suggest is not one of the greater insights provided by classical philosophers.

  4. I’ve seen the example above phrased so that each step of half the remaining distance takes the same length of time. This requires your velocity to fall to zero at the point of arrival. Thus, velocity is defined such that it will take infinitely long to arrive. So, the statement reads ‘If I choose my speed to vary such that I will only arrive after an infinitely long time, it will take me an infinitely long time to arrive’. Another tautology.

I will now make a claim, and subject it to a similar analysis of assumptions and conclusions.

“I have just solved a paradox postulated by Thales of Miletus to demonstrate that semantics are meaningless, thus showing that semantics are indeed meaningful”.
The conclusions are
A. That Thales of Miletus was wrong, and has just been shown to be so by someone with no philosophical education of any kind
B. That the statement has been incorrectly stated or quoted out of context.
C. That my logic is wrong.

Starting with C: I believe the logic is correct, thus I will eliminate this conclusion.
I find A to be implausible, as I believe the rest of this forum will too.
This leaves only B, that the statement is quoted incorrectly or out of context. Without further knowledge about the context, this is as far as the analysis can go.

Having demonstrated that the statement is either incorrectly applied or incorrectly stated, I still fail to see what relevance it has to semantics.

#234

:? :? :? Back on topic :!: :!: :!:

#235

But here is one of your biggest errors:

The many of the great contributions of the Roman Empire were known by and used by the people of Rome and their conquered subjects during the very reign of Rome!

The Roman Arch was, as you have seen, a great advancement in architecture. It was applied immediately, and Roman architects used it all over Europe henceforth!

The contribution of Roman Law was also applied from it’s inception. When it was codified, it almost immediately became the basis for law throughout the Roman Empire, most of Europe, and much of the non-Roman world!

The contributions of philiophical deduction of Roman philosophers and those who would use them did so immediately, as they were applied and debated for use in all of the fields of knowledge that pertain to intellectual thought and the use of deduction to determine what is and what is not proper for the application of any form of science, art, philosophy, mathematics, etc!

The contribution of Roman accounting practices and record keeping on a large scale was used to manage every part and every land that fell within the Roman Empire!

The contributions of Rome were put to use to great extent during the reign of the Roman Empire, in Rome and elsewhere in the world. They did not lay dormant until a later time. This in itself is one of the things that makes Rome’s contributuions so significant.

It doesn’t count? How is it different that a Brit takes principle that has been invented and develops it into something significant, but if Rome does the same, it is insignificant? Now you are being a hypocrite as well as playing sematincs! As you have seen, Rome’s contributions were not dormant ones.

It is true that the Romans were great at developing known ideas. But it is also true that the level to which they developed them, codified them, and applied them made Rome’s contributions so very significant. It is also true that Rome did not only develop known ideas, but create many others different enough in essence as to be considered original. How can you say that the Romans only developed cement instead of inventing it, if the only mortar known to man before it was mud? BTW, the Romans did not use mud in their architecture. Mud was used mostly by the poor to build houses in the countryside of many cultures around the world. However, it was used by the Scandinavians to build homes and longhouses for centuries. From mud, which is washed away with time, even when mixed with straw, to cement, which remains for hundreds or thousands of years. How can you say that cement is not an invention?

This is the sort of thinking that you are attempting to apply to Rome’s contributions to the world. Would you say the same for the Roman columns of soldiers? Did they get all of their ideas for military formations from the Greeks, or did they invent any new ones? Both! The fact that they advanced some of those ideas does not lessen the significance of those they invented!

You don’t think it’s possible to compare two empires directly? So now that you have learned more of the greatness of Rome you say that you cannot compare them directly? Semantics.

In the case of comparing Rome to any other empire, it is quite easy to compare them. This is because, as I have already explained, the contributions of Rome were so significant because they conceived, collected, codified, defined, refined, and wrote with detail about many of the principles which effected the foundations of science, art, philosphy, etc.The contributions of Rome were more profound in their day than those of Britain in it’s day, or in any other day.

You are in effect attempting to disqualify Rome’s contributions by alluding that Britain’s contributions, made in an era of knowledge and quickly advancing science and communications, are greater than Rome’s contributions, made in a time of relative ignorance and lack of communication. And that is folly.

But is is not. It is that of Thales of Miletus. Perhaps Zeno was influenced by Thales. :lol:

Yes Sir. You posted before I finished editing my post. Sorry.

#236

[quote]
Crab_to_be wrote:
Yet, when considering the contribution of the British Empire, it doesn’t count if the vital early science was performed within the Empire and someone else developed the idea, as with the cavity magnetron. Equally, it doesn’t count if someone else had the idea first, but it was made useful by work done within the Empire, such as the steam engine in the self propelled or static form.

It doesn’t count? How is it different that a Brit takes principle that has been invented and develops it into something significant, but if Rome does the same, it is insignificant? Now you are being a hypocrite as well as playing sematincs! As you have seen, Rome’s contributions were not dormant ones. [/quote]

Eh? Did your philosophy course include a module in utterly missing the point? I’ll rephrase:

You are applying different standards of comparison to each empire, which renders your comparison invalid. I never argued the point you accuse me of - that a British invention / discovery is of different importance to a Roman invention / discovery. That is the precise point that I was arguing against. I never claimed that Rome’s developments were dormant, although this may be true of some of the examples give.

It’s easy to feel like you’re winning an argument when all you are in fact doing is inventing straw men to knock down. […]

Edited to remove inflammatory comment, thus keeping the General happy.

#237

Osprey - lots of trouble with the transition from hover to straight and level flight. It’s horrible in terms of aerodynamics, and thus control. But, once that’s been overcome, it will swiftly become successful. There’s lots of civil and military applications for it.

#238

We have been asked to go back to topic.

But please, don’t insult me by implying that I am a liar when I say I studied philosophy in college. Obviously, I have. I have no intention of insulting your education. Please do not insult mine.

#239

The use of the word “fag” for instance (why the Americans find a colloquialism for cigarette offensive is completely beyond me).

#240

The use of the word “fag” for instance (why the Americans find a colloquialism for cigarette offensive is completely beyond me).[/quote]
Or, indeed, one’s lower school servant at some of our better schools: although admittedly, that definition may be a tad blurred :slight_smile: