Ancient Impossible

American television show

Ancient Impossible (2014–present) is an American educational television show on the channel H2.

Season 1 edit

"Ultimate Weapons" [1.01] edit

"Moving Mountains" [1.02] edit

"Monster Monuments" [1.03] edit

"Ancient Einsteins" [1.04] edit

  • Is it possible the ancient world had geniuses greater than ours today?  The greatest scientific discoveries involve huge leaps of imagination, but you have to leap from somewhere.
    • 27 July 2014, 10:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time


  • Many consider this man to be the father of robotics.  His name was Philon of Byzantium.  He was also known as Philo, or Philo Mechanicus, because when it came to mechanics, he was thousands of years ahead of the game.
    • 27 July 2014, 10:15 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time




  • Archimedes was a brilliant inventor and a mathematician.  He says to the people around him, "Don't just live in the lap of the gods.  Don't be dominated by Mother Nature.  You, as a man, can take control of your own destiny."
    • 27 July 2014, 10:53 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

  • According to legend, nothing could get between him [Archimedes] and his work, and sometimes he would even forget to eat.  Ideas would come to him at any moment, and he would scribble them on any available surface.  Famously, he was in the bath when he discovered the laws of buoyancy, leading him to run naked through the streets shouting "Eureka!"  …  Eureka means "I have found it," and it could be argued that Archimedes found out more than anyone else before or since.
    • 27 July 2014, 10:53, 10:57 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

  • Tragically for all of us, he [Archimedes] was cut down by a Roman soldier because he refused to stop working.  …  If Archimedes hadn't been killed before his time, what could have he achieved?  The industrial revolution could have happened two thousand years earlier.  He might have kick-started the modern age.
    • 27 July 2014, 10:57, 10:58 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

  • In 48 B.C., when Julius Caesar was attacking the city, it's thought that much of the great library was destroyed by fire.  What other works of genius were destroyed?  We'll never know.  There may even have been ancient geniuses of whom we know nothing.  Is it possible that one day we'll discover a new ancient Einstein?  From what we do know, it's clear that the ancient Greek inventors were all extraordinary men.  They began modern science over two thousand years ago.  They were truly ancient Einsteins.
    • 27 July 2014, 10:59 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

"Power Tools" [1.05] edit

"Greatest Ships" [1.06] edit

"Biggest Builds" [1.07] edit

"Roman Empire" [1.08] edit

External links edit