How to Invent Everything
An NPR Best Book of 2018 "How to Invent Everything is such a cool book. It's essential reading for anyone who needs to duplicate an industrial civilization quickly." --Randall Munroe, xkcd creator and New York Times-bestselling author of What If? The only book you need if you're going back in time What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past... and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on humanity's original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat? With this book as your guide, you'll survive--and thrive--in any period in Earth's history. Bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North shows you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted--from first principles. This illustrated manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. Deeply researched, irreverent, and significantly more fun than being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, How to Invent Everything will make you smarter, more competent, and completely prepared to become the most important and influential person ever. You're about to make history... better.
Stats for nerds
30recommend
40mentions
36people
2018–2026years
80% recommend18% neutral3% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Apparently buttons in buttonholes as a clothing fastener were not a thing until 1300 ce. Maybe that fact is false but, if true, it's crazy to me it took until 1300 ce to think of putting a "button" through a hole.
Maybe the issue is the defintion of "button" but still.
There's this non-serious book, "How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler", which describes things you could introduce if you were beamed back in time. Things you could actually make and just took people to think of (vs like a smartphone that requires high-tech). "Buttons" was one of them.
- In such a situation, I'd really hope that I have my handy copy of https://www.howtoinventeverything.com/ available!
- You might like https://www.howtoinventeverything.com
- I've heard better things about How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler by Ryan North (who has some other interesting titles, too).
Also, if this is your jam, the YouTube channel [How to Make Everything](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIqCzQJXvYj9ssCoHq327g) is fun because the guy is actually trying to speedrun the human tech tree. He has some cheats that make it work, like once he "invents" something, he will allow himself/his team to buy cheaper/higher quality/modern versions of it, but I think that adds to the fun.
- > Every once in a while I pull up some Wikipedia article with idle curiosity of "If I were transported back in time, could I usefully help this get invented?"
This reminds me of the book “How to invent everything” by Ryan North, to kind of see the fast-path for many inventions :)
- If you like this then you will probably enjoy the book How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler by cartoonist and computer-scientist Ryan North.
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