Ealier electricity

[Tyr]

Because of a little ASB TL I'm working with now I'm reading up a lot on the history of science. One thing which is standing out to me with this is: Wow....we were sure late with electricity weren't we?
IOTL electricity was never really harnessed until well into the industrial revolution...which is odd as electricity and steam power don't necessarily have to be so linked...

So...what if electricity was discovered before the industrial revolution?
Could we perhaps get an alternate industrial revolution built upon electric rather than steam?- a somewhat green industrial revolution if you will, water wheels and windmills being fully understood for a rather long time...
Or at the least perhaps it could play a major role in the revolution.

 

[DValdron]

I think the standard answer from the engineer types on site is that you need the Industrial revolution to produce copper wire in volume, length and consistency to allow the electrical revolution.

 

[DValdron]

I suppose the question is, what kind of volume of metal production, and what kind of metalworking techniques would be required to produce enough copper wire and other necessaries to allow at least the initial experiments and experimentation in electricity, and have a basis for mass production.

 

[Stephen]

It also takes allot of wire to make a chainmail vest and copper is easier to work than iron.

The voltaic pile was invented by Volta after studying the electric cells in electric eels in a scientific manner.

I supose you could have someone invent earlier by accident after discovering a curiouse sensation when dipping coper and lead bars into sulfuric acid. And then spend the rest of his life studying the stuff and discovering electromagnitism induction etc. Have someone discover these things in the 16th century and in the 17th century you could have the rich playing with elctric horseless cariages, radio comunication, spark gap musket and showing off the electric lighting in their palaces.

Before steam the industrial implications are limited, you must remember that electicity is not a source of power just an energy carrier. It will probably be more effiecient to put your factory inside the watermill and use the mechanical power of the water wheel directly than to change it into electricity and back again. Although you could do more work in winter with electric lighting and mine coal more safely. A proper hydrodam with good turbines etc would be much harder to make than the early steam engines and the number of damable rivers is limited so the majority of electricity used today is made by coal fired power plants.

The military and political implications of radio comunication and more reliable muskets could be huge however.

 

[Stephen]

I wonder if you could wank Alexander the Great even more if you gave him radio comunication.

Radio comunication also solves the problem of calculating longitude.

 

[Iori]

It woud be interesting if you coud somehow get the Baghdad Battery (whether or not it was used that way or not) become seen for its true potential, which would introduce electricity a millenia before Volta even did any experiments.

 

[archaeogeek]

It was discovered well before the industrial revolution.

 

[Cook]

I wonder if you could wank Alexander the Great even more...

That sentence is so wrong on soooo many levels.

 

[Tyr]

The production of copper wire was my thought too but yes, chainmail took a lot too, it couldn't be produced in industrial quantities but it could certainly be produced.
And yeah, true that its just storage, I was exagerating quite a bit with saying it could do a industrial revolution but nonetheless...some interesting major advances could come around due to it.

Early radio...interesting. That one never really came to me...I was thinking more earlier telegraph...hmm....

It was discovered well before the industrial revolution.

Not so much, static was pretty well known all through history but it wasn't until 1600 at the earliest it could really be said to be discovered and then not until the 18th century that much further work was really done on it with it being properly harnessed not until the 19th which was well into the industrial age.

That sentence is so wrong on soooo many levels.

Its not wrong if its two mutually concenting adults

 

[Sior]

http://ancientskyscraper.com/322712.html

“The ancient batteries found in the Baghdad Museum and elsewhere in Iraq all date from the Parthian period of Persian occupation, between 250 B.C. and A.D. 650. However, electroplated objects, which presuppose the use of some form of battery, have been discovered in Iraq in Babylonian ruins dating back to 2000 B.C. It would appear that the Persians and later craftsmen in Baghdad inherited their batteries from one of the earliest civilizations in the Middle East.

 

[Valdemar II]

While I'm not a expert in engineering, one us which seem rather obvious to me are a early devlopment of aluminium, while it was refined early on with chemical means, the use of electricity in the refining process resulted in the price fell significant (from more expensive than gold to cheap mass produced product). Access to a cheap light metal would have significant effect on the developments in the 17th and 18th century.
Another aspect are that the use of watermills would favour rather poor wet mountainous areas like the Alps, Carpathians and Fennoscandinavia. We may put Sweden, Denmark-Norway, Switzerland, Austria and Transsylvania in the position as the industrial heartland of Europe, at least until we see a increasing importance of coal and iron.

 

[Grey Wolf]

They'd probably develop the electric chair earlier if you look at humanity's track record

Would it be obvious to people HOW electricity could be used? What was Benjamin Franklin aiming at, for exaMPLE??

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Tyr]

http://ancientskyscraper.com/322712.html

“The ancient batteries found in the Baghdad Museum and elsewhere in Iraq all date from the Parthian period of Persian occupation, between 250 B.C. and A.D. 650. However, electroplated objects, which presuppose the use of some form of battery, have been discovered in Iraq in Babylonian ruins dating back to 2000 B.C. It would appear that the Persians and later craftsmen in Baghdad inherited their batteries from one of the earliest civilizations in the Middle East.

The bagdad battery is pseudo-history. Not confirmed, just a somewhat far out theory.
But anyway. I'm speaking of modern, western civilization here.

They'd probably develop the electric chair earlier if you look at humanity's track record

Heh, I'd disagree with the exacts but true on those lines- the old car battery and clamps torture technique would quickly become a favourite.

 

[Don Lardo]

The production of copper wire was my thought too ...

And that thought was correct. The mass use of electricity is wholly dependent on the mass production of wire.

... chainmail took a lot too, it couldn't be produced in industrial quantities but it could certainly be produced.

The level of industrial illiteracy in that sentence is absolutely breathtaking.

As people moved "off the farm" and into cities, sociologists began noticing a knowledge "disconnect" of sorts between the consumers of food and the producers of the same. Similarly, as western societies become more and more "post-industrial", sociologists are noticing a similar knowledge disconnect between the consumers of products and the producers of those products.

The quantity of "wire" in a chainmail coat is a pittance compared to the amount of wire required by coils, motors, generators, or many other electrical devices. Furthermore, the quality of wire needed in a chainmail coat is not even remotely comparable to the quality required by electrical devices.

Electrical devices need huge lengths of seamless wire of a relatively fixed diameter fashioned from metals/alloys of a known purity. Blacksmiths, goldsmiths, and other cottage craftsmen are not going to be able to produce either the quantities or qualities of wire you'll need.

You aren't going to have the quantity and quality of wire necessary for electrical devices until an industrial revolution occurs to provide it. And, without that wire, you aren't going to be able to build even the primitive equipment the early electrical pioneers of the 19th Century used.

Early radio...interesting. That one never really came to me...I was thinking more earlier telegraph...hmm....

Good sweet Morse...

Having enough wire to wrap a coil or three is one thing, but can you even envision the amount of quality wire you'll need for a simple three-strand conductor carrying a signal between Baltimore and Washington?

 

[archaeogeek]

Rather than early radio, though, early Chappe telegrams and better road earlier might be on to something...
Neither requires electricity: it requires, however, political will and finances.

 

[Tyr]

And that thought was correct. The mass use of electricity is wholly dependent on the mass production of wire.

Yet electricity was still known and used before that point. Cities didn't start becoming electrified until right at the end of the 19th century. Most of the science was there at the beginning of the century. I can see little technology-wise that would stop that coming quite a bit earlier.

The quantity of "wire" in a chainmail coat is a pittance compared to the amount of wire required by coils, motors, generators, or many other electrical devices. Furthermore, the quality of wire needed in a chainmail coat is not even remotely comparable to the quality required by electrical devices.

A. Of course.
But its possible to make more than one chainmail coat.

You aren't going to have the quantity and quality of wire necessary for electrical devices until an industrial revolution occurs to provide it. And, without that wire, you aren't going to be able to build even the primitive equipment the early electrical pioneers of the 19th Century used.

You could say the same about most things. Yet the first factories were built. They were built the hard way but built they were.
Why does a copper wire factory need to be steam powered and surrounded by textile mills and railway lines and all the other stuff?

Good sweet Morse...

Having enough wire to wrap a coil or three is one thing, but can you even envision the amount of quality wire you'll need for a simple three-strand conductor carrying a signal between Baltimore and Washington?

Of course it'd be hard. But harder than radio? A simple telegraph can be done with just a simple wire and zapping current through it in a pattern. A radio however requires some pretty complex engineering (relatively).

No need to be a knob about things.
I know this is hard, I know this is mad. This however is not a noobish 'WI Rome had a industrial revolution' thread but a serious attempt at original discussion.

 

[freodhoric]

Having enough wire to wrap a coil or three is one thing, but can you even envision the amount of quality wire you'll need for a simple three-strand conductor carrying a signal between Baltimore and Washington?

129 miles which would run to around 4.25 tons of copper assuming 14g wire. Do you know how much wire is needed to make a chain mail shirt? Doing some quick calculations, 29,000 feet or about 5.5 miles. Do you know how pure Otzi's axe was? 99.7%, which isn't as good as today's wire standards of >99.9%. Unfortunately, i can't seem to find any info on purity of telegraph wire. How surprising. That is of course assuming that our allohistorical electrical engineers use copper wire. I understand that iron wire was widely used for telegraphs.

http://books.google.com/books?id=y8VJAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[Don Lardo]

But its possible to make more than one chainmail coat.

You're still having trouble grasping the "Quantity & Quality" issue.

Producing tens of thousands of chainmail coats is not the same as producing tens of thousands of miles of seamless wire of a known thickness from a metal and/or alloy of know purity. With the coat, you're producing thousands pieces of an inch long or so. With the wire, you're a single piece a thousand miles long or so.

The two tasks are not even remotely similar.

Why does a copper wire factory need to be steam powered and surrounded by textile mills and railway lines and all the other stuff?

Why? Because it's an industrial process that's why. It needs power on an industrial scale and it needs materials on an industrial scale so it can produce wire on an industrial scale.

Do you seriously think you're going to produce enough wire of sufficient quality with children swaying on swings while holding pliers?

A simple telegraph can be done with just a simple wire...

Yeah, because making even a mile of wire is so simple...

A radio however requires some pretty complex engineering (relatively).

Sort of. Discovering radio requires relatively complex engineering. However, building a crystal set after radio is developed is rather simple. Of course, you can't even guess at the simple bits without first developing the hard bits.

This however is not a noobish 'WI Rome had a industrial revolution' thread but a serious attempt at original discussion.

This discussion is neither serious or original.

It isn't serious because it completely unaware of the technology required and, as a quick pass through the Search function reveals, it's far from original:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=13505&highlight=early+telegraph

And that's just one older thread devoted specifically to this idea. Dozens of other threads on other subjects touch on the topic too.

The old member "wkwillis" seemed to have a knack of sorts for explaining industrial technologies to post-industrial mindsets. Searching for his older posts should turn up a nugget or two that could explain better than I the fundamental problems with your idea.

 

[freodhoric]

Producing tens of thousands of chainmail coats is not the same as producing tens of thousands of miles of seamless wire of a known thickness from a metal and/or alloy of know[n] purity.

No. Remember, one chain mail shirt takes 5.5 miles of wire.

With the coat, you're producing thousands pieces of an inch long or so.

Actually about 3/4" in cut length, several feet in manufactured length.

With the wire, you're a single piece a thousand miles long or so.

You expect us to believe that no one ever figured out how to splice wire? That aside, in this pamphlet, dated 1863, it is clearly stated that the wire is supplied in one mile long rolls. This squares with my observations of remnants of telegraph lines in my youth, where there were little metal boxes about every mile or so that had batteries in them. I understand that has something to do with signal strength needing boosted occasionally. BTW, a single strand of 14g wire 1,000 miles long would weigh about 33 tons.

 

[Don Lardo]

No. Remember, one chain mail shirt takes 5.5 miles of wire.

5.5 miles in roughly 2900 ten foot lengths and 5.5 miles which are not seamless in an electrical sense.

You expect us to believe that no one ever figured out how to splice wire?

Of course not. The wire must seamless in an electrical sense, hence my continued references to wire diameter and material purity.

That aside, in this pamphlet, dated 1863, it is clearly stated that the wire is supplied in one mile long rolls.

A single one mile roll instead of the roughly 528 ten foot rolls of varying diameters and purities which will play merry hell with your signal that your non-industrial chain mail production techniques will produce. 528 ten foot rolls which will also require 528 splices and 528 "booster" boxes which can all break to cover the same distance that a single one mile roll, one splice, and one booster box can.

BTW, a single strand of 14g wire 1,000 miles long would weigh about 33 tons.

All the more reason for the factory producing it to have an industrial transport power source and be situated on an industrial transport network, wouldn't you think?

We can either build our 1,000 mile telegraph with 1,000 industrial produced one mile rolls or 2,900,000 ten foot pieces made by hand.

So, how many smiths are you going to need in order to produce in a reasonable amount of time three million lengths of varying quality wire with differing conductive properties?