How could the world skip the industrial age?

[Elidor]

Yeah. My initial thought was alien intervention.

Now, that would be an interesting world. All alien intervention TLs take place in 20th century, there is no interesting one about a pre-industrial alien intervention.

 

[rewster]

Rewster,

I'm definitely sure you're wrong.

Was wire made? Yes, in short lengths that contained varied thicknesses and were roughly spliced together.

Was wire made in the tens, hundreds, or thousands of meter lengths of fairly constant thickness and few splices you'll absolutely need for rotors and stators in motors and generators, not to mention transformer yokes? No.



First, google the term "economy of scale".

Second, check out this page I dug up to explain to you and others the technical difficulties associated with making large quantities of good wire at long lengths.

You need hundreds of meters of wire for one motor alone, wire that must be continuous in an electrical sense, wire that must not have a thickness that varies too greatly, wire that must not have too many splices, wire that you simply cannot produce by hand in the handicraft model you suggest.


Bill

Hi Bill,
I didn't necessarily mean wire of the quality, length and thickness (or even the correct alloy) required for stringing telegraph cable or creating a motor, but there was certainly a significant quantity of wire being produced in the 16th century, though trifling compared to the 19th century, used mainly for carding wool, and granted, it was iron wire. However, it was produced in mills, not entirely by hand in people's living rooms.
The link about making wire is quite helpful. Interestingly, it seems nearly all the advances listed do not really require industrialization. Steam engines for pulling are the only breakthrough listed that would... and that does severely limit the economies of scale if you are forced to leave it at the water wheel pulling stage. On the other hand, Once you've got water wheels pulling wire through rollers, perhaps you could at least start thinking about creating a limited number of electric motors, which could in turn be used to pull wire and replace the water wheels (if you have a greater source of power such as a hydroelectric generator). So really, all we end up doing is bypassing steam power, and perhaps limiting the scale of industrialization, though obviously many aspects of it are bound to happen anyway.

 

[Bill Cameron]

I didn't necessarily mean wire of the quality, length and thickness (or even the correct alloy) required for stringing telegraph cable or creating a motor...

Rewster,

No transmission lines or motors? Then how the hell is this Electrical-Only Industrial age going to work?

... but there was certainly a significant quantity of wire being produced in the 16th century...

None of which is strong enough, long enough, or of sufficient quality for use in electrical applications.

Interestingly, it seems nearly all the advances listed do not really require industrialization.

The processes need to be industrialized if you're going to be making the quantities you need at the level of quality your electrical systems require.

On the other hand, Once you've got water wheels pulling wire through rollers...

Waterwheels do not have the requisite horsepower, which is why steam engines took over the job as the page I linked for you explicitly states. Waterwheels are also limited to relatively few physical locations for obvious geological reasons, which is another reason why steam engines took over.

... perhaps you could at least start thinking about creating a limited number of electric motors...

I want you to find an electrical motor or generator, open it up, and marvel at the quantity of wire used in the rotors and stators. The motor in your washing machine alone will have hundreds of meters of wire.

So really, all we end up doing is bypassing steam power...

All you're bypassing is common sense.

... and perhaps limiting the scale of industrialization, though obviously many aspects of it are bound to happen anyway.

No society will consciously limit itself to your "hydro-only" power schemes when steam engines are cheap, plentiful, and can be installed in many more locations.

This idea is a non-starter and my explanations as to why are beginning to repeat themselves. Electrical equipment is far too useful to be ignored, such equipment requires good quality wire by the ton, and steam engines are far to useful to produce that wire and the electricity it conducts. Period.


Bill

 

[Rny2]

Large firms might be very rare, most production coming from small, local, specialised family businesses that sub-contract with each other.

Fewer larger cities and greater suburbanisation.

More even industrial and economic development (no North/South split).

Little development of socialist or communist ideology.

Less powerful central government and more localism.

Libertarian Utopia?

 

[the_lyniezian]

Random thoughts...

I was almost going to mention Newton's Radio, although there is not necessarily any lack of industrialisation or steam power. If anything, the discovery of electricity in this timeline is what drives industrialisation. (That doesn't get rid of it altogether, but the concept of electricity and radio signalling is there before industrialisation is.)

One way you could get around this is by finding some way of manufacturing copper wire in significant quantities rather than steel (IIRC copper is a lot easier to extract than iron for one thing) and there could be some way of ensuring steam power is not so significant in such a timeline- maybe no James Watt?- that makes the imporatnce of relying on other means of power necessary to consider. I am sure you could get hydro-power working if you had some sort of lare-scale civil engineering- but that is not far off large-scale industry again.

There is no real way of avoiding industrialisation completely, but you can alter its course. Like the sort of large-scale manufacturing of iron for construction purposes.

Of course, we could forget about moving-part machines altogether. Assuming your electricity is battery-powered (but then you need a pwerful enough battery) maybe you could use electricity for things such as lihting, and so on. (Then that depends on what is being used for the filament- you need to smelt metals such as tungsten in certain amounts!) Radio I think may be out out of the question- early transmitters used coils of wire and we are back to square one again!

Your information age with electric lighting alone may be a non-starter- light-based semaphore maybe?

 

[tallwingedgoat]

The original premise for this thread, that some countries have managed to leapfrog industrialization, is wrong. Ireland didn't build smoky factories, but Ireland still imports industrial goods. It didn't have to industrialize because it outsourced its cars to Germany and Japan, airplanes to US and France, and everything else to China. Service economies produce huge amounts of pollution, its just that the factories those economies depend on are overseas, polluting other people's backyards.

The only way to skip industrialization is to have other people do it for you.

Now if the original thread is about how to industrialize without polluting the world so badly we can perhaps theorize about earlier development of wood gasification rather than burning coal for example, or earlier solar/wind power. Clean industrialization may be possible, but industrialization itself cannot be skipped, nor can it be totally clean.

 

[Faraday Cage]

What about anachronistic fiber-optics?

 

[Bill Cameron]

What about anachronistic fiber-optics?

Faraday Cage,

And the lasers needed to "pimp" fiber-optic circuits have come from where?


Bill