Look to the West Volume V: To Dream Again

[1SaBy]

New Granada is in as well? Damn. The little black octopus has probably now grown another tentacle.

Shoulda called it Boaty McBoatface.

Also, Megalapteryx? Giant Wing/Feather seems an odd name. I'm going to have to guess that Pterosaurs are counted as part of the group ITTL? Still seems difficult to get dinosaurs into that group unless the definition was based on Archaeopteryx + insert a Pterosaur, and they realised later those large reptiles they'd dug up elsewhere actually fit in that group.

Maybe they figured out the connection between the dinosaurs and birds very early on? Unlikely I'd say, but possible.

Thought so.

Also nice job dodging the paleo question.

Thande is exposing his true nature here. A nature typical of a certain kind of person. That kind of person is... a politician! Hopefully, there'll be an update on paleontology.

 

[Cynric]

And so it begins...

On the subject of paleontology and its development, a lot of the big dinosaur finds in OTL came out of the Alberta badlands. If memory serves, that's presently Superian territory, or at bare minimum thinly populated American land. How is Western Canada coming along right now versus OTL, and is the ENA still trying to attract Germans and Nordics to fill up the empty quarters?

 

[Falecius]

Popping out just to say how AWESOME this is (after weeks spent reading much of the previous relevant stuff since vol. I, of course).

I interpreted "megalapteryx" as "big wingless [bird/animal]" but my Greek is not so good to be certain.

 

[Archangel]

Keep it up, Thande!

 

[Beedok]

On the subject of paleontology and its development, a lot of the big dinosaur finds in OTL came out of the Alberta badlands. If memory serves, that's presently Superian territory, or at bare minimum thinly populated American land.

A good number did, but the US foothills were where Cope and Marsh had their bone wars. If I remember the borders correctly some of these lands were recent additions to the ENA, so that might help get more money into the area (and see some of the other bone beds in Utah and other great basin areas as 'it's ours now' expeditions). Belgian and British fossils will probably be less known, and possibly German ones. A richer France might lead to more famous Neogene and Paleogene animals though, as French bone beds tend to be post KPG. Also Argentina is known for both some of the best early fossil beds for dinosaurs and some of the largest Cretaceous animals, so the UPSA might have some fun showing off their massive Titanosaurs (noteably Argentinosaurus) and Therapods (Giganotosaurus, which was longer than T. rex).

In fact the ENA's heavier T. rex vs. UPSA's longer Giganotosaurus might be a fun rivalry in a late 19th century bone war. Who's really the biggest?

How is Western Canada coming along right now versus OTL, and is the ENA still trying to attract Germans and Nordics to fill up the empty quarters?

It was pretty empty of Europeans until the late 1890s/early 1900s OTL too. Might want to grab some Slavs to fill it too if OTL is any indication of who'll move there.

 

[1SaBy]

In fact the ENA's heavier T. rex vs. UPSA's longer Giganotosaurus might be a fun rivalry in a late 19th century bone war. Who's really the biggest?

Sorry, the Ottomans have Spinosaurus in Egypt.

Edit: I love how everyone is talking about dinosaurs and no one about ships.

 

[Antony444]

Really interesting chapter. Loved the naval developments and the politics behind them.
The Pandoric War looks like a nasty conflict, by the hints Thande gave us. And of course there is the issue ENA/England, which looks like it's going to explode very soon in civil war, with the King/Emperor on the side of the Americans, and his cadet brother with the English...

 

[Thande]

Really interesting chapter. Loved the naval developments and the politics behind them.
The Pandoric War looks like a nasty conflict, by the hints Thande gave us. And of course there is the issue ENA/England, which looks like it's going to explode very soon in civil war, with the King/Emperor on the side of the Americans, and his cadet brother with the English...

Thanks to you and everyone else for the comments.

I already have an idea for the next chapter, but not sure when I'll get the chance to write it. I need to talk about military stuff a lot in the leadup to the Pandoric War but I don't want it to get repetitive so I will space it out with other subjects.

 

[Beedok]

Sorry, the Ottomans have Spinosaurus in Egypt.

True, but I'm guessing their paleo will be a bit behind the other two, so discoveries are a bit away. Probably.

Edit: I love how everyone is talking about dinosaurs and no one about ships.

I did paleo in school, it's something I care about.

 

[Kriegdämmerung]

Maybe they figured out the connection between the dinosaurs and birds very early on? Unlikely I'd say, but possible.

Well, given how much more connected China is ITTL, it's possible that the Chinese boneyards of OTL, with all their feathery, fluffy dinosaurs, are found before many of the traditional European/American finds. Which raises the idea of a TL where *eologists believe that *dinosaurs (or at least *theropods) were merely early birds. Perhaps they would even divide dinosaurs along those lines, as opposed to the saurischian/ornithiscian divide IOTL.

HOWEVER

Curiousity peaks in India. We know that there will be a "Scramble" and that Chinese will become a major language there; the Hiedler chapter shows at least the beginning of this. But, with states like Panchala and Chola in India's future (SEE: recent snippet, "Cholanese"), I'm curious how India will be renamed/divided. Given what we know of early Chinese efforts to get in, it seems like anachronistic names are in vogue for India's future, a la Ghana or Mali in OTL's Africa.

 

[Indicus]

“Don’t worry, love, I’ve made sure we’ve got tickets for the First Alderman’s Regatta. I know how much Peter wants to see the Raleigh sailing up the Thames, we’ll have the best seats in the house, as it were. Just tell him he’s not allowed to make whoosh-bang noises unless we’re absolutely sure the Cholanese Ambassador isn’t in earshot. See you later love, DBH xx”

Oh shit. Please continue with this

 

[fortyseven]

There's a dinosaur called Dreadnoughtus.

 

[1SaBy]

Well, given how much more connected China is ITTL, it's possible that the Chinese boneyards of OTL, with all their feathery, fluffy dinosaurs, are found before many of the traditional European/American finds. Which raises the idea of a TL where *eologists believe that *dinosaurs (or at least *theropods) were merely early birds. Perhaps they would even divide dinosaurs along those lines, as opposed to the saurischian/ornithiscian divide IOTL.

That certainly is a possibility. What would the division be then? The same as ours (with different names), but the Maniraptorans being considered birds?

Other possible reason for the odd naming is that maybe they discovered Gastornis or a similar flightless bird early on and lumped them together with Theropods, while naming methods are the same as OTL - first name sticks - viz Basilosaurus.

 

[Atom]

Eh, my secondary school education is probably enough till the 1800s or so.
Speaking of which, Galois's life was so ridiculously unlikely and affected by French politics it'd be very different TTL if he was born at all?

Yes, and Abel's as well, so the foundations of Algebra will be quite different. I think Gauss will still be roughly the same, assuming that we believe much of his talent is innate.

Ironically, although much of the theme for this TL is how different Britain is, British mathematics was already so irrelevant in the 1700s I doubt any of the changes of TTL could have made that worse. It looks like (given the new tidbits we know about German universities) that math will still be mostly French/German (I can't remember, did Thande ever mention whether ther were a similar set of reforms in TTL to the French university system?).

 

[Faeelin]

You know, it would be funny if the result of this timeline where America remains a monarchy is for Anglo-American relations to be worse than otl...

 

[Makemakean]

Yes, and Abel's as well, so the foundations of Algebra will be quite different. I think Gauss will still be roughly the same, assuming that we believe much of his talent is innate.

Thing I always found quite baffling about Lagrange and Galois and many of these other pioneers of group theory is that their approach to the topic was incredibly different from the way we look at it now. They were working in terms of polynomials and functions and so forth. It was first when the Norwegians got hold of the topic and managed to decode the work of earlier brains that it developed into the discipline that we know today.

It is of course at first glance quite weird that group theory developed as late in history as it did, because when you look at it the way it is taught these days, it's so elementary that you could recon that the Babylonians could have developed it. But that's the thing, it didn't start out that way, it started out as something complicated and intricate, and then later on others re-framed it as something so simple that you can teach a 7 year old.

As a physics student, I can only express frustration and pure awe over the highly abstract and elegant way in which mathematicians' minds work.

 

[Falecius]

Thing I always found quite baffling about Lagrange and Galois and many of these other pioneers of group theory is that their approach to the topic was incredibly different from the way we look at it now. They were working in terms of polynomials and functions and so forth. It was first when the Norwegians got hold of the topic and managed to decode the work of earlier brains that it developed into the discipline that we know today.

It is of course at first glance quite weird that group theory developed as late in history as it did, because when you look at it the way it is taught these days, it's so elementary that you could recon that the Babylonians could have developed it. But that's the thing, it didn't start out that way, it started out as something complicated and intricate, and then later on others re-framed it as something so simple that you can teach a 7 year old.

As a physics student, I can only express frustration and pure awe over the highly abstract and elegant way in which mathematicians' minds work.

Norwegians? Tell me more.
(I always thought that it was a German development).

 

[Atom]

Thing I always found quite baffling about Lagrange and Galois and many of these other pioneers of group theory is that their approach to the topic was incredibly different from the way we look at it now. They were working in terms of polynomials and functions and so forth. It was first when the Norwegians got hold of the topic and managed to decode the work of earlier brains that it developed into the discipline that we know today.

It is of course at first glance quite weird that group theory developed as late in history as it did, because when you look at it the way it is taught these days, it's so elementary that you could recon that the Babylonians could have developed it. But that's the thing, it didn't start out that way, it started out as something complicated and intricate, and then later on others re-framed it as something so simple that you can teach a 7 year old.

As a physics student, I can only express frustration and pure awe over the highly abstract and elegant way in which mathematicians' minds work.

I think that's typical in math. Think of how utterly tortured Newton's notation for multivariable calculus is, or (slightly better) how ungainly using quaternions everywhere us for 3-D mechanics. Or, fun fact, what we call Maxwell's equations are not his at all - the 4 nice ones we learn in school are actually the work of Oliver Heaviside, Maxwell originally published 20 such equations.

I think this is fairly typical of the history of math - people working on the frontier develop some great idea, and struggle to express it in the available notation (language) of the time. Then someone else comes along and sees that really they're talking about something much simpler and reformulates the whole thing in a much clearer way. And then of course they go on to do something difficult with it usually.

The math field I'm always confused about not developing earlier is probability. People have gambled since as long as we know! But it took ages and ages for people to systematize and really think about the whole thing.

 

[Makemakean]

Norwegians? Tell me more.
(I always thought that it was a German development).

Well, geographical bias may be making me overestimate the importance of the work of Sophus Lie and Ludwig Sylow.

Of course, as far as the former is concerned, there is also my education being that of a physicist's, and the work of Lie is incredibly important to us.

I think that's typical in math. Think of how utterly tortured Newton's notation for multivariable calculus is, or (slightly better) how ungainly using quaternions everywhere us for 3-D mechanics. Or, fun fact, what we call Maxwell's equations are not his at all - the 4 nice ones we learn in school are actually the work of Oliver Heaviside, Maxwell originally published 20 such equations.

I think this is fairly typical of the history of math - people working on the frontier develop some great idea, and struggle to express it in the available notation (language) of the time. Then someone else comes along and sees that really they're talking about something much simpler and reformulates the whole thing in a much clearer way. And then of course they go on to do something difficult with it usually.

Indeed so. The work of the "Great Simplifiers" is often underappreciated and overlooked.

Am I right in taking it that you're some kind of mathematician? If so, mind entering a little correspondence with me? I am in great need of a better network of mathematicians.

 

[Beedok]

The math field I'm always confused about not developing earlier is probability. People have gambled since as long as we know! But it took ages and ages for people to systematize and really think about the whole thing.

You have to remember that water wasn't safe to drink, so most people were somewhat drunk throughout history. That surely impeded the process.