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The best of History of Engineering & Technology books by number of unique Reddit comments:
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Read How To Invent Everything!! It’s a hilarious well written book that talks about these exact circumstances! Highly recommend
Highly recommend the book How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler
It goes through and humorously explains everything you'd need to bring the world back up to speed
I remember reading a book in University about catastrophic engineering failures that really drove the point home on how many safety regulations were developed as well as safety codes due to tragedy. It definitely changed my perspective when considering issues.
ETA: This was the book: To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design by Henry Petroski.
The movie is okay as a movie, but as as far as historical value goes, it's more in the 'inspired by' category. They touch upon a few of the moments and ideas presented here, however.
For a more (and way more interestingly brought) in depth explanation, I can recommend 'The Code Book' by Simon Singh (amazon)
> “Well they survived long enough to achieve space flight,” Forty-five Trills pointed out. “They can’t be too careless with explosions, can they?” ...
... said no-one familiar with the history of human rocketry.
On which subject, did you know that Ignition! is back in print? Now that book definitely shouldn't be taken as a challenge.
In the iconic book Ignition! every test fire where the test stand doesn't blow up, is considered a success ;-)
It was Gene Kranz. He also released an amazing memoir called Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the early history of NASA spaceflight. It's incredible.
edit - I meant to reply to /u/VoxVirilis a couple of comments below this one. There was confusion over who coined the term "Failure is not an Option". It was Gene Kranz. My comment showed up here for some damn reason after I typed it and hit Reply.
Have a read.
It’s a fun read that takes you from prehistoric times to more modern inventions, with all of the discoveries along the way. Granted, it is rather superficial as it needs to be given the amount of material it covers. I found it fun and fascinating!
The premise is that it’s a handbook for a stranded time traveler and tells you what you need to do to rebuild civilization.
The relevant passage from John Clark's "Ignition!":
>”It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that’s the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.”
A similar book but a little more directly matching OP's scenario is How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler. It's kind of a fluffy book that doesn't take itself seriously, but does attempt an outline of key inventions that allow advancing civilization more rapidly at each point in time.
But the information in that book is easy to absorb and more or less memorize. I'd want to condense it down to key facts, like recipes for simple chemical processes, etc., and then I'd be tempted to say I'd want some math tables, if I don't have a calculator, but I'm not quite sure how soon I'd need that.
A map of mineral deposits would be pretty useful.
I'm curious about it and will probably still end up getting it as well as another one that always comes up in the other recommended list. How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler I'm suspecting what I've got in mind is just too big.
I had this happen a couple of times to me in one year. I found out later that it likely originated with Target when they got hacked a few years ago and then the other was from a Wendy’s POS terminal when it came out that all of them in the area in which we lived were discovered to have malware installed which skimmed customer numbers.
I actually read a book about credit card hackers called Kingpin.
https://www.amazon.com/Kingpin-Hacker-Billion-Dollar-Cybercrime-Underground/dp/0307588696
It’s a really interesting read and it makes you realize that basically, if you ever use your card, there is a chance it will get stolen at some point.
So your advice is definitely sound. Just check every month at least. I would also turn on transaction notifications. That’s how I caught what was happening both times. I set the limit to $5 so basically any transaction except for buying a candy bar or something alerts me. Good way to keep an eye on things.
The Apollo rockets used kerosene and liquid oxygen for their first (and largest) stage. The later stages used hydrogen and oxygen, instead.
Collecting and compressing large amounts of hydrogen is unbelievably dangerous, and liquid oxygen isn't far behind - but neither is exactly rare. Kerosene is an article of commerce, and while you'd want to control purity fairly carefully for rocket fuel, which costs, it's more that you need a staggering amount of it than that the fuel itself is unusually expensive.
Interestingly, one of the best books ever written on this subject, Ignition!, is back in print. I highly recommend it if you have any interest in rocketry whatsoever: it covers fuel development, spanning most of the period from the late 19th century all the way up to the Cold War. Clark's style is also eminently quotable:
> [Chlorine trifluoride] is, of course, extremely toxic, but that’s the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.
Failure is not an option is a memoir from the Flight director for the Mercury and Apollo Missions.
Ignition! is a book that talks about the history of Liquid Rocketry.
> How long would it take realistically for humanity to reach the industrial revolution if we knew everything we know now? I'm talking large scale.
Like if we landed on earth with all the knowledge but none of the stuff, with all of humanity (billions of people) able to help in the effort?
It's a supply chain problem then. You're not talking about how long would it take to get one email sent, you're talking about how long it would take to rebuild all the infrastructure necessary so that most of the world's population can send an email from their phone.
You might find this book interesting, btw. I haven't read it myself but did have it recommended once: How to Invent Everything
> Σαν ανθρωπότητα, κατασκευάζουμε διαφόρων μεγεθών πράγματα εδώ και κυριολεκτικά χιλιετίες. Όλη αυτή η γνώση μας έχει δώσει την ικανότητα να μπορούμε να κάνουμε εκτιμήσεις για το πόσος χρόνος θα χρειαστεί μέχρι την ολοκλήρωση ενός έργου, ακόμα κι αν δεν έχει γίνει κάτι παρόμοιο στο παρελθόν.
Πολύ σωστά. Αλλά όχι σε όλους τους τομείς της μηχανικής. Στις πιο, ας τις πούμε "παραδοσιακές" περιοχές της μηχανικής, ναι έχει συσσωρευτεί μία γνώση ανα τους αιώνες η οποία βέβαια έχει τυποποιηθεί και βελτιώνει κατά πολύ την κατάσταση της εκτίμησης αλλά αυτό που συμβαίνει είναι να μαθαίνεις από τα σφάλματα, όπως αναφέρει και ο Petroski στο υπέροχο βιβλίο του.
Όμως, στη μηχανική λογισμικού π.χ. (σχεδίαση και υλοποίηση) ακόμη και σήμερα οι εκτιμήσεις πέφτουν πολύ έξω στις περισσότερες περιπτώσεις, σε σημείο να υπάρχει ακόμη και σήμερα αυτό που στα τέλη του 1960 ονομάστηκε software crisis.
I'd recommend "The Information," by James Gleick. It's about the ways that people have developed to communicate with one another and the ways that communication shapes culture and society.
https://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/1400096235
How similar is the insect population to earth? It’s labour intensive and alcohol in needed, but some of the first insulation for electronics was Shellac. Plus the other uses.
Get him this book: Ignition!
It is an intimate history of liquid-fueled rocket engines. It is fantastic. Unless, of course, he already has it.
Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants (book)
I believe this is some edition of the book available for free online: ignition.pdf
According to the phenomenal book "Ignition!", that's pretty much how modern rocket propellant came about. They did some theoretical work, but most of it was just "This might make a good combination, or it might blow up. Let's try it!"
I’m not sure ammonia is applicable to jet engines - I’m sure it’s been tried. Ammonia has been used as the fuel and oxidiser for rockets but by itself has too little impulse. It may show promise as a rechargeable battery substitute.
If you haven’t read it, look up Ignition! by Iohn Drury Clark for all you might ever want to know about setting fire to dangerous chemicals in the name of “coz I can”.
It's an engineering euphemism. RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly) is a common abbreviation used in engineering circles. I believe the origination of the phrase was first mentioned in the 1970s book Ignition! which was a book a lot of future rocket and aerospace engineers would read before going in to the field.
"Returned to Kit Form" is a common way to say "it exploded" in model rocketry circles as well. It's just something engineers say because it sounds more intelligent than "blew up" or "exploded"
The story of Max “Vision” Butler, in 1998 he found a found a security hole in the ubiquitous BIND name server daemon which he promptly backdoored leaving himself an entryway into government and military networks around the country. He was busted in 2001 by the FBI and did 18 months in federal prison and immediately after being released he started stealing and selling credit card. He and his group stole more then 2 millions credit cards and used some of the credit cards to make $86 millions in fraud purchases. Kevin Poulsen wrote a book about Max Butler "Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground" old but it's a great lecture with great stories.
This book should be mandatory reading for all engineers. Okay fine we can leave the software guys out this is just recommended reading for them.
If you want to know more I loved reading Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants