AHC: Technology and Science A Century or Two More Advanced

Is it possible in this timeframe that technology can be given a bigger boost. Would that have to require a POD below the threshold? What could we see and what are the effects?
 
Here's a thought,

The Scientific Enlightenment in the Islamic world continues and spreads. If fundamentalism and stagnation hadn't ended the Golden Age, we might be speaking in Arabic right now while colonizing the solar system. We'd also be "culturally muslim" if not actual believers (in the same way that most Atheists in the west today still celebrate Christmas).
 
Human civilization get's entangled in a interstellar war between two galactic super powers. These aliens set up bases in our solar system including Earth, they battle it out between each other and after the war is over the occupying aliens leave, leaving behind their infrastructure, weapons and equipment. While teaching humans how to use their technology. They terraform Venus and pull it's orbit back to Earths and turn both planets into a double planetary system so they orbit each other like Charon and Pluto.

(Hey read it in a book, seems plausible?)
 
Carl Sagan claimed in Cosmos that if the writings of the Ionian Greek philosophers hadn't been lost, we might very well have split the atom 500 years ago.
 

Deleted member 1487

Carl Sagan claimed in Cosmos that if the writings of the Ionian Greek philosophers hadn't been lost, we might very well have split the atom 500 years ago.

Come on Sagan, really? He really thought we'd have developed the requisite technologies to even attempt it? Theoretical framework is one thing, the technical ability is quite another.
 
Have the industrial revolution happen earlier, either in Europe or somewhere else.

Done!

Its really weird that the industrial revolution only happened in 18th century europe and not anywhere else at any other time. The chinese had advanced coal mining and iron smelting industry in 16th century. The Greek Egyptians had developed steam powered toys but never thought of using them for industry.

I think an even more interesting timeline would be about if the industrial revolution never took off or stagnated before it made its breakthrough.
 

tenthring

Banned
Its really weird that the industrial revolution only happened in 18th century europe and not anywhere else at any other time. The chinese had advanced coal mining and iron smelting industry in 16th century. The Greek Egyptians had developed steam powered toys but never thought of using them for industry.

I think an even more interesting timeline would be about if the industrial revolution never took off or stagnated before it made its breakthrough.

There's lots of scholarship on why this is, and you could devour whole books pointing to multiple causes and controversies.

I tend to think human agency factors (various claims about politics or religion) are given too much emphasis and impersonal factors are given too little influence. I don't think its weird that it happened in Europe, there are some solid reasons, but it wasn't an inevitablity.

Jared Diamond was going for this in Guns, Germs, and Steal, but his book is tainted by the fact that he starts with his thesis and then goes looking for evidence. Causes him to overlook some things, especially evidence we've gathered over the last few decades.

My point in general though is that modern science requires:
1) Economic resources to run experiments
2) Economic resources so that you can develop the scientific talent you have
3) Strong economic and military returns to science that can be implemented at the mass level in a single lifetime

Otherwise its only ever going to be a few dudes patronized by some king to come up with fun toys or factoids. There is an upper limit on what you can do in that mode.
 

Zek Sora

Donor
Guys: A lot of you are posting before 1900 PODs. I think OP was asking about after 1900 PODs, given that we're in After 1900. :D
 
Is it possible in this timeframe that technology can be given a bigger boost. Would that have to require a POD below the threshold? What could we see and what are the effects?

depends on your idea of the future. it's either "more of the same but with polished white surfaces" or "waking up the universe".
 
Guys: A lot of you are posting before 1900 PODs. I think OP was asking about after 1900 PODs, given that we're in After 1900. :D

Perhaps because "A Century or Two More Advanced" is not possible with a POD After 1900.

However, up to 50 years might be possible with a peaceful century. No WW1, for example. Of course, this has enormous butterflies because in some cases technological advancement was spurred by war. On the other hand this is a claim I've always been sceptical of, and in my view with a lot more people alive and a lot more money available technological advancement will be even more pronounced. I assume there would still be an arms race of some kind between nations, which will spur military technological advancement in any event.
 
Perhaps in one or two fields but not overall

These might accelerate the discoveries in question:

-Transistor in 1927 (Russian, Canadian, or American) instead of 1947

-Birth control pills in 1946 (Styrex links with UNAM in 1944-1945) instead of 1956 (when US trials led to FDA approval)

-Robert Goddard gets additional funding starting in the 1920s, orbital rockets available in early to mid 1940s instead of late 1950s

-World War I 'differential analyzer' and Dumaresq leads to Allied collaboration for improvement, much more advanced electromechanical computers in the 1920s

-Werner Jacobi succeeds in developing the integrated circuit in 1949 instead of its OTL development by Texas Instruments in 1959

-Penicillin mass produced from 1930 onwards instead of 1942
 
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