Fun fact: throughout much of Russia there are about a hundred
known
abandoned scientific facilities that don't have a known purpose and are quite isolated in the Siberian wilderness. Who knows what technologies have been lost in the fall of the Soviet Union? It's possible that one of these places stumbled upon a major scientific breakthrough, or was on its way to a big discovery, when the Soviet system collapsed.
The
Buran Program
was another piece of Soviet lost science. It was more advanced than the American space shuttle, and it made its first and only space flight in 1988. Then it was all canceled after the USSR fell, the Buran was put along with the other unfinished ships into a hangar, scavenged for parts, and then just forgotten. What was left of the Buran prototype got destroyed in 2002, when its hangar collapsed due to a lack of maintenance. Sad!
Thoughts
I find Kumakhov optics interesting:
https://spie.org/about-spie/press-room/spie-member-news/in-memoriam-muradin-kumakhov-12-16-14
http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/volume.aspx?volumeid=4861
Patent for x-ray lithography:
https://www.google.com.ar/patents/US5175755
To post the link again on Russian/Soviet optical computing (including hybrid optical computers for military systems):
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000500647.pdf
Modern optical computers:
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...-speed-of-light-optical-computer-on-your-desk
Interesting book
on holographic technology, including Russian/Soviet work.
This is an interesting website on Nazi technology, mostly accurate:
http://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/articles/patents.html
The best single-volume source on Nazi military technology is still Witkowski,
The Truth about the Wunderwaffe
There is an absolutely indispensable
German-language book
on the biggest patent theft in history, including how most of the "inventions" attributed to Bell Labs were in fact just stolen (but with lots of scans of US declassified documents, on revolutionary advances made by I.G. Farben and the like -- I might post some in this thread).
It also just occurred to me that we can rank the level of technical innovations by different civilizations. Number one would probably be a tie between the Germans and Ancient Greeks (although it's hard to compare for different periods). The USA would have certain strong points (complex integrated systems, like the Crossbar system and
switching technology
in general), Soviets would have certain strong points (analytical advances, like in optimization and control theory -- say the work of people like M.V. Keldsyh).
Also.. ever notice how almost nothing useful was ever invented by Jews?
Not only that, but it would be interesting to see Georg's other books on German nuclear weapons delivery systems translated as well.
This is a lost machine-like arrow release technique I find interesting:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/embed/BEG-ly9tQGk
How well would it compete