You might want to take a look at “Quantum Computing Since Democritus” by Scott Aaronson. I believe it’s based on the course he taught at the University of Waterloo.

I clicked again on the link I posted to make sure it’s correct (https://worldhistory.substack.com/p/plastic-before-plastic) and it brought me directly to the blog post without needing to scroll through anything else. Wondering where the link you clicked on dumped you into?

I think they just missed the segue from the intro (about the caning of Charles Sumner) to the body of the article (about gutta-percha).

The two are only tangentially related in that the cane happened to be made of gutta-percha, and its easy to miss the sentence where they mention this because it's sandwiched between a large image and a form to subscribe to the newsletter.

Yeah my bad. I saw the substack subscribe footer followed by the full Gutta Percha section and figured that it was a separate article. In my defense that was a very circuitous lead in.

From the video’s description: "There aren’t that many places where it makes sense, but when you compare the options for holding a reservoir back in a narrow canyon valley, arches make a pretty compelling case."