The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch (39 page)
Read The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch Online
Authors: Lewis Dartnell
Tags: #Science & Mathematics, #Science & Math, #Technology
Watt, James,
170
n
welding,
131
–32
wet collodion process,
241
wheat,
53
–54,
55
,
60
,
66
,
67
,
68
,
70
,
71
,
73
,
86
,
89
Wikipedia,
9
wind,
168
–70
windmill,
46
,
169
,
170
,
171
–72,
178
–80,
179
,
213
winnowing,
68
Wiseman, John “Lofty,”
33
charcoal from,
106
–7,
116
,
124
,
135
,
184
gasification of,
191
–93
paper from,
211
–13
wood alcohol (methanol),
118
–19,
190
wool,
96
–98
World Health Organization,
37
World War II, POW radios in,
226
–27
Wyndham, John,
53
yeast,
89
–91
Zeer pot,
93
Text
1
: Excerpt from
Rameau’s Nephew and Other Works
by Denis Diderot, translated by Jacques Barzun and Ralph H. Bowen (2001). Reproduced by permission of Hackett Publishing.
2
: Excerpt from
The Day of the Triffids
by John Wyndham, published by Random House. Reproduced by permission of David Higham Associates Ltd.
3
: Excerpt from
Oryx and Crake
by Margaret Atwood, © 2003 O.W. Toad Ltd; used by permission of the author. Published by McClelland and Stewart/RHC in Canada and Doubleday/Random House in the United States. All rights reserved.
4
: Excerpt from
A Canticle for Leibowitz
by Walter M. Miller, Jr., published by Little, Brown and Company.
5
: Excerpt from
Alas, Babylon
by Pat Frank. Copyright © 1959 by Pat Frank. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
6
: Excerpt from
Danny, the Champion of the World
by Roald Dahl (Knopf, 1975). Copyright © Roald Dahl 1975. Reprinted by permission of Random House Children’s Books.
7
: Reprinted with the permission of Atria/Scribner/Gallery Publishing Group from
Shampoo Planet
by Douglas Campbell Coupland. Copyright © 1992 by Douglas Campbell Coupland. All rights reserved.
8
: Excerpt from
Diderot on Art
, Volume 1 by Denis Diderot, translated by John Goodman (1995). Reproduced by permission of Yale University Press.
9
: Excerpt from “Little Gidding” from
Four
Quartets
by T. S. Eliot. Copyright 1942 by T. S. Eliot; Copyright © renewed 1970 by Esme Valerie Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Illustrations
1
: Second floor reading room of the Camden N. J. Free Public Library © Camilo José Vergara 1997.
2
: Hydroelectric generators in Goražde, photographer © Nigel Chandler/Sygma/Corbis.
3
: Svalbard Global Seed Vault: photograph © Paul Nicklen/National Geographic Society/Corbis; map design by Darren Bennett, dkb creative.
4
: Simple farming tools, illustration by Bill Donohoe.
5
: Complex farming tools: plough from
Lexikon der gesamten Technik
by Otto Lueger; harrow, seed drill, and plough action from
Meyers Konversationslexikon
(1905–1909) by Joseph Meyer. All reproduced courtesy of www.zeno.org.
6
: Cereal crops from
Meyers Konversationslexikon
(1905–1909) by Joseph Meyer, reproduced courtesy of www.zeno.org; page design by Bill Donohoe.
7
: Mechanical reaper from
Meyers Konversationslexikon
(1905–1909) by Joseph Meyer, reproduced courtesy of www.zeno.org.
8
: Spinning wheel from
The Wonderful Story of Britain: The New Spinning Machine
by Peter Jackson (1922–2003) / Private Collection / © Look and Learn / The Bridgeman Art Library.
9
: Loom © Science Museum / Science & Society Picture Library. All rights reserved.
10
: The pyrolysis of wood: (
TOP
) drawing of retort for wood distillation taken from p.12 of
Wood products: distillates and extracts
by Dumesny and Noyer (1908); (
BOTTOM
) diagram by author.
11
: Rudimentary foundry, photographs reproduced by kind permission of David J. Gingery Publishing, LLC.
12
: Lathe © Science Museum / Science & Society Picture Library. All rights reserved.
13
: Blast furnace, illustration by Bill Donohoe.
14
: Birthing forceps, reproduced courtesy of Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
15
: Overshot waterwheel, fig. 56 on p.109 from
Flour for Man’s Bread: A History of Milling
by John Storck and Walter Dorwin Teague (UMP, 1952), copyright 1952 by the University of Minnesota, renewed 1980.
16
: Self-orienting turret windmill from “Wind powered factories: history (and future) of industrial windmills,” in Low-Tech Magazine, article © Kris De Decker (edited by Vincent Grosjean).
17
: Crank and cam, illustration by Bill Donohoe.
18
: Charles Brush’s electricity-generating windmill, reproduced courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society.
19
: Pelton turbine, reproduced courtesy of the A. P. Godber Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library.
20
: Gas-bag bus © Scotsman Publications.
21
: Wood gasifier car © Mike LaRosa.
22
: Makeshift horse-drawn trap © Sean Caffrey / Getty Images.
23
: Internal combustion engine, illustration by Bill Donohoe.
24
: Mold for type casting, author’s photograph.
25
: Simple radio receiver: wiring diagram (
TOP
) by Bill Donohoe; photograph (
BOTTOM
) reproduced courtesy of Tim Sammons.
26
: Soda plant: photo (
TOP
) Solvay Process Company’s works, Syracuse, N.Y. from the Library of Congress; diagram (
BOTTOM
) by author.
27
: Mechanical clock from
Meyers Konversationslexikon
(1905–1909) by Joseph Meyer, reproduced courtesy of www.zeno.org.
28
: Barnard’s star, diagram by author.
29
: Shifting of the celestial North and South poles, diagram by author.
30
: Sextant, from p.1932 of
Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language
(1911 edn).
*
Economists rate the quality of a fuel reserve by calculating the Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI). This tells you how much usable energy can be gained from a particular deposit relative to all the energy you must expend in mining, refining, and processing it. For example, the first commercially exploited oil fields in Texas in the early 1900s were very easy to harvest and had an EROEI score of around 100—they yielded a hundred times more energy than was consumed in its extraction. Nowadays, as the supplies dwindle, more and more effort must be spent in sucking up (including the hassle of offshore drilling rigs) and processing the remaining drops—the EROEI has dropped to about 10.
*
In many respects, therefore, charcoal is a fuel superior to coal and is by no means confined to the history books. Brazil, for example, is blessed with abundant timber resources but few coal mines—a situation that is likely to be encountered more broadly in the post-apocalyptic world with regrowth of the forests—and is the largest charcoal producer in the world. Some of it is used in blast furnaces for creating pig iron that is exported to be made into steel for cars and kitchen appliances in the United States and elsewhere. Much of this charcoal is sourced from managed forestry, and so this offers opportunities for “green steel.”
*
Today, we hold hurricane lamps and candles as
reserve technologies, kept as a reliable, easy-to-maintain backup in case the more advanced option fails. But rudimentary technologies also provide a sense of occasion, such as the horse-drawn carriage at a funeral or the candlelit romantic dinner. In this sense, some old technologies never really become obsolete, but persist with a different primary function. For survivors, these methods present hopeful fallback options after the apocalypse.
*
WARNING: Never use aluminum pots or utensils for creating soap. Aluminum reacts vigorously with strong alkalis to release explosive hydrogen gas.
*
Birthing forceps were kept a strict secret for more than a century by the family of doctors who invented them, as so much money could be made from the advantage they provided over other obstetricians. To preserve their mystery, they were brought into the room inside a lined box that was opened only when observers had been removed and the mother blindfolded.
*
One of the first clinical trials in history was conducted in 1747 with scurvy sufferers to demonstrate that citrus fruits do in fact contain a protective agent.
*
Using this design, in 1681 Antoni van
Leeuwenhoek became the first person in history to actually see a germ. Leeuwenhoek had come down with a case of the runs and felt compelled to examine his own watery waste under his new microscope. He reported sighting “animalcules a-moving very prettily,” “somewhat longer than broad, and their belly . . . furnished with sundry little paws.” He saw what we would now identify as a protozoan called Giardia, a common cause of diarrhea. Before too long Leeuwenhoek was observing microbes in droplets of water, and bacteria swarming in feces and decaying teeth. On examination of his own semen he discovered the vigorously wriggling sperm cells behind the sexual reproduction of all animals (although he insisted that he did not obtain his own samples by “any sinful contrivance” but that they were the “excess with which nature provided me in my conjugal relations”).
*
The possibility of invisibly small organisms was speculated upon long before the first microscope was invented. The Roman author
Marcus Terentius Varro expressed in 36 BC his belief that “there are bred certain minute creatures that cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and there cause serious diseases.” History might have played out very differently indeed if Varro had known how to make a rudimentary glass-globule microscope to confirm his hunch. Imagine the pestilence and suffering that could have been prevented if germ theory had been developed before the birth of Christ.
*
As they achieved an impressive degree of sophistication in the late nineteenth century, windmills became controlled by a centrifugal governor—two heavy balls that swing out on arms—that automatically regulated the spacing between milling stones to suit the variable wind speed. Today we instantly associate this control system with the steam engine, where it acts to close the throttle valve admitting high-pressure steam into the piston if it begins to whirl too rapidly, but James Watt had in fact borrowed it wholesale from windmill technology.
*
If you have any of the old-style tooth fillings you can even demonstrate this in your own mouth. Chewing a piece of aluminum foil introduces a second metal that reacts with the mercury-silver filling in your tooth, your own saliva serving as the electrolyte. Be careful trying this, though, as the electrical current produced will be delivered right to the nerve endings in your filled teeth!
*
The root of this name for a connected assemblage of individual electrochemical cells is in military jargon: an emplacement of several heavy guns is an artillery battery.
*
In fact, there is a recent precedent for just such a technological regression following the crash of mechanization, and an emergency rebooting of animal traction power. Beginning in the early 1960s the agricultural system of Cuba, following Castro’s revolution and the adoption of the Caribbean island as a Soviet client state, was transformed by farming machinery and supplies provided by the Soviet Union and East European nations. With the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989, however, communist Cuba was abruptly severed from its imported supply of fossil fuels and equipment, and faced a nationwide breakdown of transportation, mechanized agriculture, and the ability to produce fertilizer or pesticides. The nation was forced to rapidly redevelop substantial animal power to replace 40,000 tractors, and an emergency breeding and training program was initiated. In less than a decade Cuba had built up its oxen herds to almost 400,000, as well as a recovering horse population, to keep working its fields.