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Post by justiniano on Oct 12, 2022 16:43:08 GMT
What if Iron mines didn't exist?
Personally, I think we would still be in the bronze age and the industrial revolution wouldn't have happened until the late 20th century, considering the temperature of burning coal and how weak bronze gets at such temperatures.
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Post by American hist on Oct 20, 2022 1:39:00 GMT
Well, this is obvious, but no iron age I guess the industrial revolution provided there is one would be slower and less impactful. This is an interesting scenario.
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raunchel
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Post by raunchel on Nov 7, 2022 7:36:05 GMT
That would lead to a radically different world because iron has some pretty useful properties. I'm assuming that somehow the rest of the planet is still the same, higher iron concentrations just don't appear close to the surface. That way, the planet at least still kind of works although it would be very weird.
But, assuming that, no iron being available means no industrial revolution. Iron has the great advantages of being both incredibly abundant and easy to work. Without it, there are no other metals available in suffienct quantities to do much with and things like wood and the like just aren't worth the effort. You could still see some plastics developed but that would happen much more slowly in the absence of that kind of metallurgy and they can't be used to mass-produce machinery.
Bronze-based weaponry and the like also is vastly different and much more limiting in terms of how much of it you can get. That leads to vastly different economies and so, we just don't get all that far. And by the twentieth century would probably still be reliant on muscle power and the like.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Nov 7, 2022 17:57:31 GMT
That would lead to a radically different world because iron has some pretty useful properties. I'm assuming that somehow the rest of the planet is still the same, higher iron concentrations just don't appear close to the surface. That way, the planet at least still kind of works although it would be very weird. But, assuming that, no iron being available means no industrial revolution. Iron has the great advantages of being both incredibly abundant and easy to work. Without it, there are no other metals available in suffienct quantities to do much with and things like wood and the like just aren't worth the effort. You could still see some plastics developed but that would happen much more slowly in the absence of that kind of metallurgy and they can't be used to mass-produce machinery. Bronze-based weaponry and the like also is vastly different and much more limiting in terms of how much of it you can get. That leads to vastly different economies and so, we just don't get all that far. And by the twentieth century would probably still be reliant on muscle power and the like.
Would agree. Which would mean that populations are very much lower and also you could see mineral resources, at least those available to the technology available are likely to be exhausted before much else could be developed. Possibly some far more advanced biological activity with a lot of breeding of specialised animals and plants but without a broad knowledge base - as most people are still likely to be illiterate peasants - I doubt that could get far.
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