Analyze Myth Assignment

In this assignment you are to think about the observations and experiments that went into developing an ancient technology.  You can do anything you wish, but the technology must have been in use at least 500yrs.

If you wish you can use the following:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxBsbzUKnAs

Questions:

  1. What is the technology?   If you are using the above video, what was developed was a rush light.
  2. The peasants in the past wouldn’t have thought of them as “observations”, but what did the peasants notice that lead them to develop the technology?
    1. If you are using the above video,
      1. why do they soak the rushes in fat?
      2. Why do they use that particular grass?
  1. What various things might have been tried in the development of the old technology? If you were doing this for a more modern invention, Edison tried many different filaments before he found tungsten filaments for his light bulbs.  These variations they tried were essentially experiments.
    1. If you are using the above video,
      1. What would happen if you just burned grass without soaking it in fat?
      2. Why is fat a good idea for soaking the grass? Why not salt water and then let the grasses dry?
  • How would the light perform with other grass?
  1. Soaking didn’t change the performance of the rush light. Why might the peasants have thought soaking the grass might help?
  2. What types of fat might they have tried?
  3. Could they try soaking the grass in anything else that would be available?