Timeline for Can a technological world exist that does not have the means to invent guns or explosives?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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Aug 2, 2018 at 2:27 | vote | accept | SFWriter | ||
Oct 24, 2017 at 2:27 | comment | added | Keith Morrison | If you can make bronze bells, you can make a cannon. In fact, they were made exactly the same way. You could also weld iron metal rods together to make a barrel. It runs a high risk of bursting, but it was done. | |
Oct 22, 2017 at 17:47 | comment | added | Sarriesfan | @DPT you should get an answer from a proper gunsmith, I am not one or a metallurgist for what the actual properties would be. I do know enough to say it's difficult to say that guns cannot be constructed on metallurgical reasons if you have devices such as internal combustion engines. | |
Oct 22, 2017 at 15:01 | comment | added | ohwilleke | Asimov chose unavailability of metals as a major constrain upon his Foundation. | |
Oct 22, 2017 at 14:19 | comment | added | SFWriter | This may give me a way out though, it seems reasonable that a heavy and inconvenient gun could exist (because it should, logically, given the world) yet be so unwieldy that it is not carried around as a means of defence. | |
Oct 22, 2017 at 7:11 | comment | added | Sarriesfan | @Shalvenay I do, but earlier guns were made of cast iron that was not as strong as the steel available in the late Victorian era when the internal combustion engine was invented using that steel.If you can make an engine I would still mantain you could make a gun, it may need a more robust gun carriage than we are used to and weigh more but it would still be functional. | |
Oct 22, 2017 at 1:00 | comment | added | Shalvenay | @Sarriesfan -- you have to realize that internal combustion engine cylinders can be made with much more metal around them than a gunbarrel. | |
Oct 21, 2017 at 21:47 | comment | added | Sarriesfan | I would think that any civilisation capable on constructing the internal combustion engine with its metal cylinders, could produce a metal cylinder capable of acting as a gun barrel. | |
Oct 21, 2017 at 21:41 | history | answered | Slarty | CC BY-SA 3.0 |