Earlier nineteenth century inventions

Let's look at it this way. The industrial revolution was, presumably, the basis, directly and indirectly, for nineteenth century inventions such as the light bulb, the phonograph and the motion picture. This provided the wealth and technological basis for them. And, the industrial revolution was largely the product of steam power, and the steam engine. Now, the steam engine was actually invented in the 2nd century A.D., during the height of the Roman Empire, by Hero of Alexandria. So, in a way, we could see the question as, "Why weren't nineteenth century inventions all invented during the Roman Empire, since the Steam Engine was?" Now, while the steam engine was invented in the 2nd century A.D., it was never applied to any practical purpose. Why? Basically, effective construction of full-size, effective steam engines requires precision machining, which really requires cast iron and steel. And, these weren't developed until after the Middle Ages, because they require Coke, which is a byproduct of the use of Coal in blast furnaces. Coal only became widely employed, first in England, with the massive depletion of forests for cooking, and heating purposes. That's why England led the way in the Industrial Revolution, she was the first to need, and widely employ coal for cooking and heating, because she ran out of wood from the forests. Now, in principle, there's really no reason at all that the Romans couldn't have used coal -- it had been known as the "stone that burns" since the dawn of history -- instead of wood, and that they couldn't have develop blast furnaces, discovered the Coke by products and used them to forge cast iron and steel, developed precision machining, and used that to develop steam power, and had a Roman Imperial Industrial Revolution. But, bear in mind, the Romans didn't even invent or employ simpler Medieval inventions like the Horse Collar, the Wind Mill or the Water Mill. Why? They didn't want them! The Romans liked slave labor, and employed it with great effect -- they made the Sahara desert bloom and fertile as it hadn't been for thousands of years, and has never been since, simply by having huge numbers of slaves irrigate it. So, from a Roman point of view, new inventions were merely toys for the rich, they had no real interest in practical change and development, they like things the way they were. In other words, the reason the great nineteenth century inventions weren't invented earlier, is simply that the rich and powerful people didn't want them earlier, they preferred power and personal wealth to social progress! Sound familiar at all?

Nuclear Fusion and Warp Drive

So, suppose all those promises from the past ninety years or so of controlled, commercially viable controlled nuclear fusion actually came true. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> There are many promises, which ones? > >>>>>> > >>>>>>> What does this change exactly? Bear in mind, we all thought atomic reactors would solve everyone's problems, too, and, we all know how well that worked out! > >>>>>> > >>>>>> It depends who you talk to. > >>>>>> > >>>>>>> Surely, there will be massive maintenance costs and and various unanticipated and significant waste products and dangers, as with absolutely everything else? So, would commercial nuclear fusion power plants now, or in the past, really have improved, or even altered the human condition significantly? If so, why and how? > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Water distillation > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Less coal > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Considering that coal is much cheaper than petrol now, and we still have > >>>>>> not got a practical car going to be little effect here although synthetic > >>>>>> fuel might be a goer. > >>>>> > >>>>> OK, Solomon, I'll probably agree with these rather modest advantages. So, like atomic power, certain limited benefits, but, doesn't fundamentally alter our options, significantly. What about space travel? We thought atomic power would help, it hasn't, so far anyway, to any great degree, anyway. Can we become an interplanetary, or interstellar species with nuclear fusion? > >>>>> > >>>> > >>>> Fusion, I presume would need a large space ship, we are not up to that yet. > >>>> > >>>>> One of the real attractions of science fiction in the mid-twentieth century was the idea of a "new frontier", in space, based on space travel. Does nuclear fusion help us with this? > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> It will. The star ship enterprise uses fusion. > >>> > >>> According to the various Star Trek technical manuals, the only way that the Enterprise uses fusion is to power their IMpulse engines, that being "old technology". And let's remember that (unfortunately) it's fictional..... > >>> > >>> Regards, > >>> John Braungart > >> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> The main power is fusion but the warp drive uses antimatter. > > > > Antimatter powers the Warp Drive in Star Trek, but, there's actually no connection between the two, in real physics. Antimatter/matter annihilation is simply the most efficient power source physics can currently conceive of, and, > > > Which is why Scotty is always worried about the dilithium crystals > > > it has been tested to some extent on a very limited scale in the laboratory. Warp Drives are speculative constructs that probably don't exist, at all. > >> > >> . Excellent Solomon! Yes, I've haven't thought Dilithium Crystals in years, makes me very nostalgic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilithium_(Star_Trek) Now, Dilithium crystals are a fictional substance, created to control an actual, demonstrated phenomenon in physics, matter-antimatter annihilation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter Actually, we can have matter-antimatter conversion without these purely hypothetical dilithium crystals. They're just supposed to make it easy and efficient to do. On the other hand, even all this, isn't sufficient to give us the Warp Drive, in the Star Trek universe. It would just give us a great deal of energy, but, Einstein's relativistic limitations on going faster than the speed of light should still apply, according to most of conventional physics, as currently understood. Even Dilithium crystals and matter-antimatter conversion on a large scale should not be sufficient to achieve speeds faster than 300,000 km/s. For the Warp Drive we need something else. We need Warp Nacelles, to structurally warp the configuration of space-time -- whatever that means, exactly! http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Nacelle The matter-antimatter annihilation powers the Warp Nacelles, which somehow "warp" space-time, to allow faster than light travel. Pure fiction, of course. What I really hope, is that if we ever can achieve near light speeds with normal sized objects, nothing much in the way of relativistic effects happen at all, and we can just keep getting faster and faster, indefinitely! Now, that doesn't seem to be the case with sub-atomic particles in an accelerator. But, that's a rather abstract situation, that may not apply to the "real world", of normal sized objects in space, you know.

Population Size, Climate and Government Control

> >> > So, the American Army is itself an army of occupation of America. > >> > >> Many in your South would agree with that. > > > > Climate largely determines politics. In a pleasant, warm climate, > > there's really much less need for government, since people don't really > > need shelter very much, most of the time. Hence, the American South > > has always been anti-government. Hence, Russia, Scandinavia, Britain > > and Canada have always had strong central governments -- can't survive > > without some centralized planning, in the cold. > > Always since when? Because the history of Russia before 1000, Scandinavia > before 900, Britain before 800, and still less Canada before Europeans > started settling there, doesn't suggest a strong central government. And > as for Iceland (which is also a fair way north), they didn't get any > strong central government until the 13th century. > > And all this when the Mediterranean nations, and the Middle East, and > India, and China, had all developed strong central governments (some of > them several times in succession)! > > Maybe climate isn't so important? > > > Hence, the French and > > Italians are more easy going than the British. Hence Australians have > > the outlaw hero tradition in common with Americans. > > > > > > -- > Pete BARRETT Ah, Pete, I like the way you think! An elegant challenge. By, "always", of course, I mean in the last few centuries, given moderately large populations. Because the other critical variable determining political structure is population size. Extremely small populations don't require governments at all, people can exist in a primitive hunter/gatherer type of lifestyle, and they do. Indeed, this is the basis for the American hostility to all government -- the colonial and frontier tradition. Now, what happened in the cradles of civilization -- China, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and India -- is that agriculture became the means of increasing population size to a point that -- for the first time -- large governments became necessary. So, let's consider these two variables -- population size, and climate. The larger the population, the more government is necessary. The more difficult the climate, the more government is necessary. California has a wonderful climate, but, with a European population density, it is one of the most socialist nations in the U.S. Australia has a terrific climate, and a low population density -- hence, a very easy going place to live. India has a good climate, but, with over a billion people, socialism is necessary to control things. And take your home of Britain, Pete -- please! Cold, wet, overpopulated and regulated to the hilt and the max -- just to keep things under control. God Save the Queen!