What Happens When Gunpowder Was Invented

congruent with the institutions and feelings of the period were invented.” Mead in this quote is saying that inventions do not happen because of right or wrong but rather because of what the time period is prepared for. However, Gun powder not only started physical explosions it also started a new era of intellectual and social explosions. This invention led natural philosophers and soldiers alike to ask questions such as what happens to the cannonball after it leaves the cannon. This question took four hundred years and whole new fields of science to answer (Kelly 136). However, questions like these not only pushed warfare further along but also society as a whole. Gunpowder not only replaced the sword as the new form of warfare but also eventually led to the replacement of superstition by science. Therefore, in Mead’s theory there are three steps in which a new invention must achieve to replace the old one whether it is morally right or not. Important to note these are not Mead’s specifications of invention but rather personal interpretation of her ideas. The first step is the invention being more efficient and effective than its predecessor. In the study of gunpowder we see a superior way to cause carnage compared to the former methods. The second step is the ability to spread the

Guillotines happen to fit into the three steps discussed above as well. Guillotines were branded as a new humane form of execution. Criminals no longer would be tortured and painfully executed by hanging or beheading with dull swords. In 1789 Dr. Guillotine lobbied for the use of a more humane machine to behead prisoners in France; he was not the inventor of the machine, but rather its most famous champion (Symbol of Revolution). He intended for a more civil way of execution and instead brought an efficient method of eliminating political rivals to the forefront of civilization essentially beginning the reign of