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Old 11-11-2016, 04:27 PM   #41
Anthony
 
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Cheap being the most important aspect of explosives used for those endeavors.
Well, cheap and reasonably easy to use; it's not like dynamite is cheaper than nitroglycerine, it's just safer and easier to use.
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Old 11-11-2016, 04:38 PM   #42
Flyndaran
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Well, cheap and reasonably easy to use; it's not like dynamite is cheaper than nitroglycerine, it's just safer and easier to use.
I meant cheaper than good quality gun powder of equivalent explosive power. Nitro was cheaper, but as you say horribly dangerous. And probably more so when used day in and day out in the field as mining ops would be.
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Old 11-11-2016, 07:44 PM   #43
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Difficult to do at any time past the agricultural revolution; if you've got fertilizer, you've got nitrates (fertilizer factories are in the category of 'things that blow up spontaneously every so often').
Each of the entries on the "List of things to give" in the OP in this thread (with the possible exception of the one about tachyons) violate at least one fundamental physical law.

I think we aren't too worried about scientific plausibility in this thread.
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Old 11-11-2016, 07:45 PM   #44
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Each of the entries on the "List of things to give" in the OP in this thread (with the possible exception of the one about tachyons) violate at least one fundamental physical law.

I think we aren't too worried about scientific plausibility in this thread.
Fully developed babbage engines don't.
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Old 11-11-2016, 07:50 PM   #45
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Fully developed babbage engines don't.
However, the _utility_ of fully developed Babbage Engines gets exaggerated so much that they are almost superscience.
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Old 11-11-2016, 07:51 PM   #46
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Absent a remarkable lack of curiosity, it's hard to avoid noticing bacteria once you have microscopes. Viruses are harder to detect, but the basics of epidemiology are "these people all got sick, what do they have in common", and that sort of analysis is broadly applicable.
It's also worth remembering that the final proof of germ theory OTL wasn't motivated by people getting sick, but by *grape vines* getting sick. A problem which cost serious money year after year, providing ongoing motivation for research. And of course it's much easier to do experiments on plants.
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Old 11-11-2016, 07:57 PM   #47
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I put together a world line for cold fusion.

It might need more tweaking to be more reasonable, (as a weaker rocketry program presumably changes the British view of the war,) but it's a fun ride.

Playing with fusors getting distributed around the world. A '60s China leaping forward with fusion, for instance, could be very interesting...
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Old 11-11-2016, 08:55 PM   #48
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Regarding medicine, if they made the connection, even a fairly low-tech but well-organized society could do a great deal with basic hygiene and organizing themselves to remove sewage and animal wastes and so forth even modestly efficiently. It's possible (at least under some circumstances) for a low-tech society that has a good level of social organization to arrange running water, it's been done. That in turn can allow hygienic steps that can be a very good line of defense against disease.

As for taking tech away, you could assume that the level of U-235 to U-238 was worse than it actually is. That could happen if a planet was older when its inhabitants reached nuclear technology levels, because U-235 has a much shorter half-life than U-238. Take away the U-235 and nuclear weaponry gets a lot harder, even if you have the knowledge.
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Old 11-11-2016, 09:04 PM   #49
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Difficult to do at any time past the agricultural revolution; if you've got fertilizer, you've got nitrates (fertilizer factories are in the category of 'things that blow up spontaneously every so often').
I was thinking more in alternate physics/chemistry way. Otherwise they will get discovered one way or another.
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Old 11-12-2016, 01:38 AM   #50
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It's also worth remembering that the final proof of germ theory OTL wasn't motivated by people getting sick, but by *grape vines* getting sick. A problem which cost serious money year after year, providing ongoing motivation for research. And of course it's much easier to do experiments on plants.
Like how Gregor Mendel initially wanted to conduct breeding experiments on animals but couldn't get the order's okay. And the luck that he randomly chose a pea feature that's coded by a single predictable gene.
Not quite as influential as Darwin or Watson, Crick, and Franklin, but important nonetheless.

Removing Franklin, or having her be a bit more paranoid about hiding research from prying eyes, could have an interesting effect on the proof for D.N.A.'s shape.
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