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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi123.htm">http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi123.htm</A></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Inspiration comes in strange ways. Thanks
goes to Xanthe on this one.....</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>(....hope the rash gets better
soon!) :)</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>In listening to this episode something jumped out
that I'd not really thought about. We tend to look at the Renaissance
period as the starting point for all kinds of inventions, technologies, and
human advances. It's easy to overlook what drove those advances in the
first place. One of the underlying reasons the Renaissance was so prolific
on so many fronts was the Black Death and the havoc it caused.
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Because so many people died in Medieval Europe
durning the plauge times, manpower became a huge commodity*. That is the
amount of work that could be accomplished by one person in a day's
time became a really precious thing. Methods for multiplying that
"bottom line" drove the development of technologies and lead to all kinds
of crude inventions. Guns, crossbows, clocks, harnesses,
stirrups, hoists, mills, even the printing press are all Medieval
inventions. What is common between them? Each seek to maximize
human effort. It was the Black Death that set in motion the
realized need for such inventions and it was the Black Death which sparked
off the quest for knowledge required to invent them.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>regards,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>dsd</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>*sources vary. Some quote 40% dead to 3/4
dead of the TOTAL population.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>1347 the population was around 75
million</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>1352 the population was around 50
million</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>.....that's 25 million people dead in 5
years! The Plauge started around 1290 and didn't</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>receed until around 1430.</FONT></DIV>
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