Back before I abandoned writing fiction, I wrote a series of stories about a fantasy world which, unlike many such worlds, did not suffer from medieval stasis. Though there were centaurs and fauns and elves in this world (okay, the elves were virtually extinct), technology had not stopped advancing in 1200; the creatures there had cars and antibiotics and a ton of other stuff.
One thing they DIDN’T have was wireless communication. The in-story explanation was that there was an gaseous element in their atmosphere–called aether,for maximum irony–which, though transparent to visible light, infrared, and ultraviolet, interfered with the transmission of radio waves; even the most powerful signals could only travel about a mile before becoming so garbled as to be useless.
Now this thread is NOT about those old stories; I’m long done with them. But I am interested in hearing opinions on how the growth of technology in our world might have progressed if, for whatever arbitrary reason, a similar problem existed that made wireless communication possible. Thoughts?
Radio gave us understanding of atmospheric layers, and then radar and related technologies.
Microwave ovens- not just for home use- would not exist. Satellite communication would not have been part of the space Race. Space travel would be problematic, for that matter.
…no GPS, no LORAN, no remote navigation at all. Air travel as we know it would not exist.
Radio communication started in the late 1800’s. At that time, the telegraph was already in full swing, so you would still have instantaneous communication. One obvious ramification could be that without radio, physical transmission facilities (wires, repeater stations, etc.) would become much more important. Governments and private organizations would spend millions to ensure that their vital linkages between cities was not interrupted.
One option could be line-of-sight transmission using visible wavelengths (e.g. colored lights, semaphore). That could result in a huge network of signal towers dotting the landscape. Maybe a bit better because you only need to guard the towers and not the wires between them, but still pretty expensive.
Ooops, our line to San Francisco is down again. Might be those Kansas tornadoes again severing a wire. Send a team out onto the prairie to check.
long distance travel and commerce would be restricted. there would be very limited communication with aircraft, ships and other transportation methods.
Here’s a fun image: Once they have LOS towers for semaphores and light signaling, a logical progression would be to use laser relays to establish data links. Cities with data communication hubs would be crowned with enormous webs of laser light. (Until they figured out UV lasers, which would probably work better, but not provide as much of a show.)
That would be the eventual answer to all long-range communication where wired/fiber optic links were impossible or impractical. It would be more vulnerable to weather than our current systems, but it could work. It would even work for satellites–in fact, that would almost certainly be easier than making it work for aircraft. Once they got into space, the realm of radio communications, radar tracking, and so forth would open up to them for space applications.
GPS would be problematic. You would probably see inertial tracking in use. I designed and built an inertial tracker when I was a kid, and found it very touchy and imprecise, but if it’s the best approach they’ve got, I’m sure they can do better with it than a teenager with a barn full of scrap parts. Combine good accelerometers with visible beacons on the LOS relay towers, and they could probably make something workable. I wouldn’t expect it to be as good or convenient as GPS, however.
We would still have electricity and cars. When I was growing up, the only place that we used radio waves was to actually listen to radio–and eventually watch TV. Airplanes could fly, but they would probably be confined to VFR only. And not nearly as many. Trains and cars would be the main means of transit.
Transistors and lasers could still have been discovered. Optical cable would be even more important. Wi-Fi inside my house would be possible, but maybe not discovered since the possibilities of radio transmission might not have been thought about. And I would have to get up to change channels! Unreal. (On my cable TV of course.) GPS would be out, but I drove for decades without it, so it is not that important. But all-in-all, I think air travel would be the most heavily impacted modern technology. Although TV and radio would have had to wait till the world was cabled.
A lot of the impetus to develop electronic technology cane from radio, which moved quickly from using things like coherers and cats whisker’s and crystals to thermionic valves, once they were invented, and later very quickly embraced the transistor. Although all these technologies would have been possible without radio, it seems likely that without the radio (and then teh broadcast TV) industry as large, ready-made a market their development as practical technologies would have been a lot slower, and might not have occurred at all. I doubt if we would have had computers now if we hadn’t had radio 100 years ago.
It would have had a major effect on warfare. Once a ship sailed over the horizon it would be effectively gone - like in the age of sail. No sending out recon missions and having them call in real-time reports - you wouldn’t get information until the scout returned with it to base.
No air traffic control. No GPS.
No cell phones. I’m old enough to remember when that was normal but I’m sure many younger people would find that shocking.
A lot of media now goes through cable but that was built on a foundation of the old broadcast systems of television and radio. If we hadn’t had those as a model, the internet might look very different if it had been designed by people who read newspapers and went to movie theatres.
With only line-of-sight wireless transmission (e.g. semaphore, pulsed lasers, colored light patterns, smoke signals, etc.) and physical wired transmission, it might still be a strong military advantage to build your fortifications high up. In the old days, if your base was on a mountain, you could use gravity to your advantage to oppose an invading army marching uphill. Now, from your high-up position, you have a line of sight to a greater area and can receive smoke signals from troops further away than you would be able to see them had you been on the plains. Mt. McKinley would be a major North American communications hub.