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Thor meets Captain America - David Brin

I don't see why we need the mathematics to build telescopes. Surely trial and error would be just as effective?

www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-era-of-the-kite-and-rocket.419924 Danbenson worked out a timeline a few years ago in order to write a story. Era of kite and rocket. To sum up it is just possible to make a man lifting glider without aluminium carbon fibre or nylon but the result is...

Discoveries and technologies can be made/developed at any time after the necessary pre-existing technologies exist. For example you can not discover the moons of Jupiter without some form of telescope. However what we are interested in is technologies or discoveries that spread beyond the...

Zeppelins! Remote control Zeppelins, simply mix the active gas cells with hydrogen gas cells and when over the target release. You could use soft toy sealions to imitate the crew.

I do not think there is much Britain and America can do to speed up Germanies collapse, you can fiddle round the edges but the Battle of Atlantic and the need to build and transport all the stuff needed to attack slows down everything so a major assault is not going to be before 1944 and the...

I think you are all underestimating the effect of no Battle of Britain on the UK. No BOB = no invasion scare, all those resources can be used in better ways, destroyers can be out protecting the Atlantic convoys instead of waiting for Sealion, better more balanced production of aircraft, tanks...

Scientifically you are completely wrong. Atomic bombs fission or fusion have no effect on time. Obviously since stars only affect space-time with their mass If you are suggesting people are psychologically affected by being near massive destruction that is trivially true but has no implications...

1940 The book starts with the unlikely defeat of the world’s biggest army by plucky little Finland, moves into the ludicrous simultaneous invasion of Norway by both sides at once, slides casually into a massive assault on Europe’s strongest army supported by the world’s most motorised army that...

I suggest the first important factor is good roads followed by an urban population big enough to make mass production possible.

But would this prevent mass murder or just change the details? ideas of "cleansing the racial soul of Germany over the bodies of thousands" were commonplace in Germany from about 1920 onwards becoming more mainstream and acceptable over the years.

It is important to realise that for the NAZI leadership and a large proportion of their supporters eliminating the undesirables, particularly the jews was an important war aim. This is an alien mindset but they honestly believed that was as important or even more important than building more...

I have thought about this and decided we are all missing the point. In 1939 the British did a calculation that the cost (diplomatic, economic, political and moral) of letting Germany carry on was much worse than the foreseeable costs of a long slow war against them. In 1940 it became very clear...

Constantinople. If the only alternative is russia.......

About 100 Years later! Different technology, different politics, different economics, different diplomacy. Disclosure: am sending from phone without references. I may be misremembering the whole thing :)

Why on earth would anybody want to colonise newfoundland in 1570! The only way I can imagine is if gold or silver is discovered and that would make it ASB. It is even too early to need to defend fishing fleets. Any such colony would be economically a disaster and the backers would cut their...

I seem to recall that British analysis of the German strength, particularly in the air, were overestimates before ULTRA began to help out. some of this may have been German misinformation although they underestimated the RAF strength also. Is it true that each misunderstood other so the Germans...

This is the difficult point. You cant have electrics before wire is easily available, you cant have steam (or air guns!) before steel is reliably strong enough, you cant have the wheel if all your roads are full of steps. There is often very good reasons why one technology overtook another...

OK. I have it. The sphinx is exactly what it seems to be but the rest of Egyptian history is a 17th century fake cobbled together to explain it when the locals realised foreign people were interested.

Thank you. That would have annoyed me all night....