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Discussion and Debate
Discussion and Debate
Physical & Life Sciences
How long to rebuild civilisation after an all out nuclear war?
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<blockquote data-quote="Radagast" data-source="post: 75132165" data-attributes="member: 20522"><p>Making the engine block and pistons is the tricky bit. That's micrometre-tolerance metalworking.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, if you run a technology-scavenging society for a few generations, all the people with knowledge in their heads die. The great-grandchild of an engineering professor will be at pretty much a medieval level. They won't <strong>understand </strong>the engineering textbooks that their great-grandparent taught from. Engineering is hard <strong>even with</strong> 12 years of full-time schooling under your belt.</p><p></p><p>And if this was actually true, we wouldn't need universities <strong>now</strong>. But in fact, only a genius like Srinivasa Ramanujan can learn mathematics on their own from books. And modern engineering needs a lot of mathematics. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Post-apocalypse, you could never make advanced silicon chips. Those require plants so expensive that the planet can only afford a couple <strong>now</strong>. Even 1960s discrete-component computers would be tough. Learning how to make discrete transistors again would require similar groups of experts to the ones that made it happen the first time.</p><p></p><p>If you could still do micrometre-tolerance metalworking, you might roll back to diesel-world. If not, you might need to shoot for the age of steam. But rolling back to medieval technology seems to me the most plausible scenario. Kind of like this classic book:</p><p></p><p><img src="http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/5/59/CNTCLFRLBW1998.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Radagast, post: 75132165, member: 20522"] Making the engine block and pistons is the tricky bit. That's micrometre-tolerance metalworking. Well, if you run a technology-scavenging society for a few generations, all the people with knowledge in their heads die. The great-grandchild of an engineering professor will be at pretty much a medieval level. They won't [B]understand [/B]the engineering textbooks that their great-grandparent taught from. Engineering is hard [B]even with[/B] 12 years of full-time schooling under your belt. And if this was actually true, we wouldn't need universities [B]now[/B]. But in fact, only a genius like Srinivasa Ramanujan can learn mathematics on their own from books. And modern engineering needs a lot of mathematics. Post-apocalypse, you could never make advanced silicon chips. Those require plants so expensive that the planet can only afford a couple [B]now[/B]. Even 1960s discrete-component computers would be tough. Learning how to make discrete transistors again would require similar groups of experts to the ones that made it happen the first time. If you could still do micrometre-tolerance metalworking, you might roll back to diesel-world. If not, you might need to shoot for the age of steam. But rolling back to medieval technology seems to me the most plausible scenario. Kind of like this classic book: [IMG]http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/5/59/CNTCLFRLBW1998.jpg[/IMG] [/QUOTE]
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How long to rebuild civilisation after an all out nuclear war?
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