Stone age to space age in record time

Factual Questions
21

Wow, great responses, folks! I love seeing you all take my scenario and run with it in different directions.

Thanks, Wendell! I was wondering who’d point that out…

Eh, either way–I’d have pushed her!

[quote=Tevildo]
Your big problem is going to be metallurgy, even if you don’t use semiconductors. In order to make the vacuum tubes for your computer/radio transmitter, you’re going to need to be able to work tungsten, and you’ll need to make steel for all the tools you’ll need.
…
With a dedicated research team working on each part of the process and good access to mineral resources, you could probably get it down to 20 years, if not less.]Thanks for laying out an initial roadmap. Unfortunately, based on other posters’ input, 20 years is beginning to look a bit optamistic. Nevertheless, as God-King of Smithopotamia, I reward you for your efforts by declaring you Patron Saint of Government Contractors in the Temple of the Mighty Silly Putty.

matt, I like the way you think. Assuming I get back to my time, I’m thawing out your brain and taking it with me in a jar for company the next time I go on a chrono-expedition! AndrewL has thrown a significant monkey wrench in your plans, however. I have no idea how difficult it is to modify firmware in a typical electronic consumer good without access to additional hardware, but I’m guessing it’s difficult to impossible. For convenience’s sake, though, assume the OS of your choice. Otherwise, it looks like it’s back to teaching Og to make silicon.

I think lazybratsche and sweeteviljesus have posed the most interesting problems, though. Assuming some sort of intensive mining operation will eventually be necessary, what sort of population base would I need? How quickly could I establish that, given the limits of agriculture and breeding from wild stock? And what would it take to develop finely machined parts and tools of the sort necessary for making a computer circuit (even vacuum tube based)?

A very interesting point! I would have thought the common cold would have been widespread even in 10000 BCE. I don’t have smallpox, malaria, or bird flu (AFAIK!). How dangerous would a single person in good health be as a potential disease carrier? Would antiviral medication take more or less time to develop than integrated circuitry?

22

Matt, you need to start researching the Dangling Participle

23

If the USB port on the Encyclopedia Galactica can’t be reprogrammed into something easier to talk to, it would probably be better to not use it at all. Instead, just figure out the binary code you need to transmit, and then manually encode that in a physical format. I’m picturing a copper disk with holes punched in it to represent ones and zeroes opening and closing a set of contacts as it turns, or something similar. How practical this is will depend on the number of bits and required data rate.

24

Sorry, I did specify a “complex” code, specifically to eliminate such easy side-stepping. I almost disqualified matt’s suggestions by saying that the code likely wasn’t simple binary, but I liked his creativity, and figured the USB port itself posed enough difficulties.

Not that I’m dismissing your ideas out-of-hand. I just think some fairly tight tolerances and a high data rate are to be expected. If you can figure out a way to duplicate–say-- the handshake signal used by a modern satellite phone, using a perforated copper disk and a hand-crank, I’ll consider the problem solved!

25

Or “accidentally” drop a Texwipe into the sulfuric clean bath to watch it disintegrate.

26

USB has a clock rate of 48Mhz. Is there any non-electronic device you could make that pulses that fast?

27

Sorry, saoirse, but Matt’s not guilty. The participle (“being”) refers to the subject of the following clause (“I”), so it’s not dangling.

Here’s a dangling participle: “Running to catch the subway, the doors closed in my face.” Who’s running? The doors? No. Dangling participle.

28

Og have much silicon. [Og thrusts his flint-tipped spear close to AS’s face] See, much silicon.

You would be virtually no danger at all. And I agree that cold viruses were probably around long before that time – they probably predate humans. Unless you happen to have a cold, they probably won’t catch one from you. Rhinoviruses change and evolve over the years, so you’ll probably catch any that are circulating among Og’s tribe, but I wouldn’t expect them to be fatal.

Some one once started a siumilar thread, I think here, but possibly in another forum. That question was: Given all the knowledge needed but no tools, how long would it take to replicate a laptop (or some other high tech device). The main difference was that that thread didn’t put any limit on manpower and the need to feed clothe and shelter the workforce. I forget what consensus , if any, the other thread came up with.

29

Sounds like grammar. I spent my grammar classes designing a giant steam-powered spider robot, and therefore have to look up words like “participle” in the dictionary. I’m cool with dangling, though.

I’m wondering if it wouldn’t actually be easier to send a rocket up to the geosynchronous satellite and punch in the damned instructions while wearing my rubberised canvas spacesuit. I’m not sure which task is more technically demanding!

30

They may be similarly challenging, but one of those has a high possibility of a horrible, painful death!

31

I’m pretty sure things like the common cold are crowd viruses - they only developed post agriculture, because that’s when their where large enough populations to support their continued existence. In hunter gatherers it would just wipe them all out in one generation.

32

I doubt it. My notion of a reflective foil and electromagnet should be able to as well as a good tweeter loudspeaker, say 25-30 kHz, but that’s a thousand times too slow.

Crystal resonators can do rather better and get you into the MHz range, but that’s rather stretching the definition of “non-electronic”.

Well yes, but it’s Simpsons Series 5 at stake here! It’s got Cape Feare in it! Plus, the space route involves grandiose constructions out in the desert, with thousands of grateful slaves hauling monstrous rockets about on rollers for their God-king. Which is way cooler than fiddling about with USB interfaces!

33

Hmmm…yes, this pleases your God-King. Clearly what is needed is a competition between two tribes, one working on the USB interface and the other on the rocketship. Whoever succeeds will bask in the glow of the Silly Putty for all ages, but whoever fails will be cast into the Egg of Eternal Darkness.

Seriously, I thought about making space-flight the goal. If you think that would be easier, lay out a plan. Nothing’s more “space age” than space, after all.

34

Hopefully, Og hasn’t bashed in your skull for your silly putty or worse, remained hidden from you watching you from a distance.

But let’s say he meets you like in your scenario.

Well, I suppose if you’re willing to learn their language over a few months to a year you may be able to communicate some ideas to them that they have words for. Being hunter-gatherers you may have a few problems explaining terms like mining beyond the simple term “dig”. You could try to teach them your langauage but that may take longer.

There is a lot more your will have to deal with before you can even get them working on the high tech stuff.

As hunter-gatherers your first job is to teach them agriculture so they don’t leave your project to follow the local food’s migration. Then you need to work on permenant settlement infrastructure, including shelter designed for different seasons, clean accessable water, some form of waste disposal to prevent teh spread of nasty bugs that will dibilitate your working force. You can carve out a little society and then get to work on your project… If you live long enough to see it come to fruition.

And hopefuly there aren’t any diseases you yourself aren’t suseptable to. As a 22nd century individual would you have been immunized against small pox?

Will the Encyclopdeia Galactica give enough medical advice used to keep the unga bunga tribe alive and well during this time? You better hope so as the likely number of Hunter-gathereres will be in the tens and not hundreds. Rememeber, every cave person will count in your project. You could wait a few generations for the numbers to shore up but that might take too long.

35

Why not use lo-speed USB? That cuts the data rate to 1.5 Mbps.

If I was going to send a predetermined signal, I would build an optical device that used the same general principles as a transverse scan video tape recorder. It would produce an amplitude modulated light beam that could be used as the input to a photo-detector. The master optical tape could be produced by photo-reducing sheets of paper containing hand-drawn sequences of white and black squares.

Another possibility would be to use a set of wire recorders to allow the signal to be recorded at a very slow speed, and then multiplied through a chain of recorders to the desired speed.

36

Assuming the EG doesn’t have a Nostratic dictionary loaded into it, he might not need to then. Saying that is there a consensus on when complex spoken language started to be used? Depending on how evolved Ugg and Ogg are they may not even have the mental capacity for the kind of language and thought processes you’d need them to have for all this. I’m not sure that one person in one generation would be enough of an evolutionary “push” to spur them on to develop quickly enough for your needs either.

I like the Controvert’s idea, just create a message for your 22nd century compatriots and put it in a form that will survive and they’ll find and they’ll materialise shortly after (although that is making some assumptions about temporal physics that we currently have no way of verifying).

37

Hmm… where abouts in the world is the time traveler, exactly? There are only a few places with native plant and animal species that can be domesticated for use in food production. If they’re in the middle east or round about, no problem. You’ve got wheat, barley, beans, sheep, goats, cows aplenty. If they’re in somewhere like Australia, however, it might be a bit more difficult getting agriculture going.

38

I’m not sure which is easier, but we got into orbit in the '50s, and those guys checking the math with slide rules in Apollo 13 made an impression on me!

Technically, you can get into orbit with gunpowder rockets if you have enough stages. Or if we go liquid, the fuel can be alcohol, while nitric acid is a decent oxidiser and easy enough to make if you have elemental sulphur and tonnes of bird crap. Steering the thing, breathing, intercepting the satellite and all the other pesky little details make it a bit tougher though.

Jerry Pournelle has written a story called King David’s Spaceship, where a human colony with late 19th century technology kludged a launch to orbit to improve their status in the local galactic empire, or something like that. Their approach was like a staged project orion ship, but using conventional explosives rather than nukes. That might lessen some of the technical demands a bit - no need to work with nasty liquid oxidisers, no turbopumps, no flame stability issues, and you can turn it on and off as much as you like. It’d be heavy and the specific impulse wouldn’t be anything to get excited about, but just stick another couple of stages under the thing to compensate.

39

Just build a Radio Shack, and all else will follow.

40

He can’t build a Radio Shack. There aren’t any zip codes or phone numbers for the clerks to ask for yet.