Discovery of Uranium

Would an earlier discovery of uranium effect progress of technology(about a hundred or two years)? Maybe butterflying away the combustion engine and implementing possible uses for uranium where the combustion engine was. Plausible Steampunk maybe?
 
Good sweet Klaproth... Uranium replacing the internal combustion engine?

First all the Sealion horse feces and now this... :(

The "discovery" of uranium per se wouldn't trigger any of the changes to the OTL you asked about. Instead, the advances in science, chemistry, instrument making, plus all the advances in a myriad of other fields that those advances require, would trigger great changes in the OTL. It's not discovering uranium that is important. It's having the ability to discover uranium that is truly important.

Roughly speaking, discovering uranium a century earlier means overall human progress has been advanced by a century. You're basically dialing everything forward a century. Thus in answer to you question, the discovery of uranium in 1689 instead of 1789 would mean the alternate 2010 would resemble what our 2110 might resemble.

And just to forestall the responses I know will be posted, when I say everything is dialed forward a century, I am not suggesting that WW2 starts on 1839 and ends with Nagasaki being nuked in 1845. :rolleyes:
 
Good sweet Klaproth... Uranium replacing the internal combustion engine?

First all the Sealion horse feces and now this... :(

The "discovery" of uranium per se wouldn't trigger any of the changes to the OTL you asked about. Instead, the advances in science, chemistry, instrument making, plus all the advances in a myriad of other fields that those advances require, would trigger great changes in the OTL. It's not discovering uranium that is important. It's having the ability to discover uranium that is truly important.

Roughly speaking, discovering uranium a century earlier means overall human progress has been advanced by a century. You're basically dialing everything forward a century. Thus in answer to you question, the discovery of uranium in 1689 instead of 1789 would mean the alternate 2010 would resemble what our 2110 might resemble.

And just to forestall the responses I know will be posted, when I say everything is dialed forward a century, I am not suggesting that WW2 starts on 1839 and ends with Nagasaki being nuked in 1845. :rolleyes:

I should have asked that instead. And there's definitely going to be butterflies, but would it change the way the world develops?
 
And there's definitely going to be butterflies, but would it change the way the world develops?


Of course it would change the way the world develops because that development would have begun earlier and would have occurred for longer.

The development of the scientific method, along with the developments that development required and the developments that development sparked, have changed humanity and our world out of all recognition in the last two centuries or so.

You're suggesting that that development occurs earlier, yet you're actually questioning whether an earlier development would have any effect?
 
Of course it would change the way the world develops because that development would have begun earlier and would have occurred for longer.

The development of the scientific method, along with the developments that development required and the developments that development sparked, have changed humanity and our world out of all recognition in the last two centuries or so.

You're suggesting that that development occurs earlier, yet you're actually questioning whether an earlier development would have any effect?

Yes I am. I'm not too knowledgeable when it comes to science and history related science, so I don't have any idea what could possibly happen. That's why I asked. I was day dreaming and thought of steampunk-fueled by nuclear power, and thought that it might be accomplished by having uranium discovered and used in (somewhat) practical situations earlier.
 
I'm not too knowledgeable when it comes to science and history related science...


You don't need be "knowledgeable". You don't need to quote facts, dates, or any of that stuff. All you need to do is realize that making a basic discovery a century earlier requires lots of other stuff to occur earlier too. And stuff occurring earlier means that more stuff can happen for longer.

... so I don't have any idea what could possibly happen
Neither do I. I do realize that whatever technologies the world is using a century from now will be different from the ones in use today. There's no need to predict flying cars here, all you need to do is predict that things will be more advanced.

I was day dreaming and thought of steampunk-fueled by nuclear power...
"Steampunk" is a fantasy genre, not a possibility, and, given the difficulties and dangers involved, nuclear steampunk is almost a sick joke.
 
Yes I am. I'm not too knowledgeable when it comes to science and history related science, so I don't have any idea what could possibly happen. That's why I asked. I was day dreaming and thought of steampunk-fueled by nuclear power, and thought that it might be accomplished by having uranium discovered and used in (somewhat) practical situations earlier.

You'd need to boost science a few centuries for radioactivity to be discovered. IOTL, radioactivity was confirmed when some physicist/chemist left a lump of uranium in a drawer with some undeveloped film, and found it foggy the next morning. Let's see what we need to achieve this:

A rather advanced knowledge of chemistry and optics, to know how to develop film and cameras that would give people a reason to make film.

Scientific Method

Knowledge of sub-atomic particles.

All difficult in environments before the mid 19th century.

Now, assuming that people at least make the connection from Uranium to Hot Rocks to Steam Power, you can't get much done either. Nuclear Reactors, to be economical relative to coal or oil or wood burners, have to be large, producing megawatts of power. This is why you see Nuclear Ships and Nuclear Power Plants, but nothing smaller. It's just not practical. Without some degree of robotics, at least a 1930s level of mechanical manipulation, the reactor would be a real bitch to run. You'd need to actually send low-paid workers to move graphite beams or logs through the pile manually to control the reactions and do other maintenance, like swap out the fuel rods and/or lumps of uranium.

Now, this is all impossible fully before the 18th century. To extract mechanical energy from this reaction, you'd need a reasonably powerful steam engine. This would require a knowledge of metallurgy and mechanics that just wasn't there before the mid-18th century. By the time it reaches maturity (19th century), I'd say there would be 3 regions on earth with any capability to develop it. Britain, France, and the United States. The US is out of the running due to a labor shortage. Let's face it; when you can just pack up and move to a farm out west, why would you work in a reactor where just standing there leads to vomiting and sores? Even the worst 19th century mines and factories in the US wouldn't compare to that. And Slaves are expensive.

Britain and France have the labor, but none of the incentive. For that matter, neither does the US. When coal and wood are so much easier to extract and use, why bother with this toxic substance Uranium?

In conclusion, it is just impractical, borderline ASB really, for a Nuclear Age to exist before the 1940s.
 
Hmm, alright, I guess that was too ASB, but it was worth a shot :p. I laughed when I thought of a train running on nuclear power, but then I was like "...hold on a minute" :D.
 
Discovering the element uranium a century earlier than it was in OTL is a stretch but not impossible. New elements had already been discovered in the late seventeenth century (phosphorus in 1669, antimony sometime before this) so it is possible that uranium could be as well.

The fact of its radioactivity would not be known, of course. But there are other uses for uranium, in OTL it was used in a vivid red porcelain glaze, for example (until the dangers of doing so were recognized, at least).
 
Discovering uranium earlier without the concept of radioactivity being discovered earlier as well will simply result in the use of uranium as just another metal, only far heavier than lead (and slightly more dangerous).
 
Hmm, alright, I guess that was too ASB, but it was worth a shot :p. I laughed when I thought of a train running on nuclear power, but then I was like "...hold on a minute" :D.

You actually could get trains running on nuclear power- it just isn't very efficient. And it certainly isn't going to happen much earlier than the 1950s.
 
Discovering uranium earlier without the concept of radioactivity being discovered earlier as well will simply result in the use of uranium as just another metal, only far heavier than lead (and slightly more dangerous).

There's Ben Bova's Triumph with Churchill giving Stalin a radioactive sword as a present.
 
IIRC, nearly all of the uranium found in nature is not suitable for nuclear power unless treated to change it to a different isotope. Wikipedia says uranium (in oxide form) was first used in 79 CE. So yeah, earlier discovery would mean earlier radioactive pottery and glass.
 
IIRC, nearly all of the uranium found in nature is not suitable for nuclear power unless treated to change it to a different isotope. Wikipedia says uranium (in oxide form) was first used in 79 CE. So yeah, earlier discovery would mean earlier radioactive pottery and glass.

Or, given the Roman's love of using toxic metals in plumbing, heavy water beverages!
 
...And there's more...

Uranium enrichment requires its conversion to a hexafluoride and then some kind of isotope separation process. Natural uranium oxide might just be reactable if moderated by heavy water, but deuterium (heavy water) is hard to separate.

The US Navy route of heavy water separation by distillation is practicable without using electronics, but you would need very accurate temperature control - D2O boils at 101.4 degrees C, as against H2O at 100 degrees C.
 
Okay, let me sort out the varying levels of "discovery" at work here and then apply them to the OP's original question.

Like nearly all elements, uranium was "discovered" in a certain fashion well in the past. That is uranium as part of a naturally occurring compound or as part of a somewhat refined compound was used for various purposes. As many here have noted, one of the uses those uranium compounds was as a pottery glaze.

Once alchemy gave way to chemistry, compounds which had been used for millennia were subjected to analysis and their constituent parts identified. This is when uranium is "discovered" as uranium, when it was identified as an element.

Finally, other advances took place which allowed uranium's radioactive properties to be identified. So, our three levels of "discovery" look like this:
  • Level 1 - Uranium as part of a natural or easily refined compound is "discovered" and used. This occurs in antiquity or perhaps even earlier as the technical requirements are low.
  • Level 2 - Uranium is "discovered" as an distinct element. The compounds containing are examined chemically and uranium is identified in the same manner. This is what Klaproth accomplished in 1789 and the process used required advances in theory, technologies, and techniques.
  • Level 3 - Uranium's radioactive properties are "discovered" and those properties are harnessed as a power source. The radioactive part of this discovery occurred before the turn of the last century while harnessing those properties did not occur until the middle of the last century. Again, the processes used at this level required advances in theory, technologies, and techniques.
The OP asked his question with nuclear steam locomotives in mind. That means he was interested in the Level 3 "power source" discovery of uranium and not the Level 1 "pottery glazing" discovery.

Any earlier Level 3 "discovery" of uranium would require the advances in theory, technologies, and techniques the OTL's Level 3 discovery required, those advances would effect everything to do with science and technology, and those advances would effect everything with human society.
 
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Okay, let me sort out the varying levels of "discovery" at work here and then apply them to the OP's original question.

Like nearly all elements, uranium was "discovered" in a certain fashion well in the past. That is uranium as part of a naturally occurring compound or as part of a somewhat refined compound was used for various purposes. As many here have noted, one of the uses those uranium compounds was as a pottery glaze.

Once alchemy gave way to chemistry, compounds which had been used for millennia were subjected to analysis and their constituent parts identified. This is when uranium is "discovered" as uranium, when it was identified as an element.

Finally, other advances took place which allowed uranium's radioactive properties to be identified. So, our three levels of "discovery" look like this:
  • Level 1 - Uranium as part of a natural or easily refined compound is "discovered" and used. This occurs in antiquity or perhaps even earlier as the technical requirements are low.
  • Level 2 - Uranium is "discovered" as an distinct element. The compounds containing are examined chemically and uranium is identified in the same manner. This is what Klaproth accomplished in 1789 and the process used required advances in theory, technologies, and techniques.
  • Level 3 - Uranium's radioactive properties are "discovered" and those properties are harnessed as a power source. The radioactive part of this discovery occurred before the turn of the last century while harnessing those properties did not occur until the middle of the last century. Again, the processes used at this level required advances in theory, technologies, and techniques.
The OP asked his question with nuclear steam locomotives in mind. That means he was interested in the Level 3 "power source" discovery of uranium and not the Level 1 "pottery glazing" discovery.

Any earlier Level 3 "discovery" of uranium would require the advances in theory, technologies, and techniques the OTL's Level 3 discovery required, those advances would effect
everything to do with science and technology, and those advances would effect everything with human society.

Well at least now I know how to explain what I wanted :D. Massive leaps in technology before their time is ASB so I see how it definitely can't happen, but it was fun trying.
 
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