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Tech level "descriptions"

A major factor in the development of the gas turbine was the development of exhaust-driven turbo-chargers for high-altitude operation of conventional piston engines in the 1920s. The gave the materials needed to retain their strength in the hot exhaust gases of a jet turbine, and also the materials to handle extremely high rates of spin to compress the air. When you look at Whittle's first turbine, it is basically a turbo-charger with the piston engine replaced by separate combustion chambers for the fuel-air mixture to burn in. The Germans never did develop a really good exhaust-driven turbo-charger, so they went the axial turbine route, rather than the centrifugal turbine. The result was that the engines for the Me-262 were good for 15 to 25 hours before needed a full overhaul, while the engines for the Meteor, Vampire, and Shooting Star were good for 185 hours before overhaul, with that steady increasing as the 1940s progressed.
 
Funny, I thought the first gas turbine of any note was that one Parsons built for Turbinia (ok, steam turbine) :)

Anyway - the technological achievements of humankind and the history of science have been an area of study for me for most of my life. It is very difficult to point to key breakthroughs but consider these:
fire
thermal decomposition of rocks to produce metal oxides
reduction of rocks to metals
The stone age through to the copper age to the iron age right there.
The first functional industrial steam engine.

Glass production in the west allowed discoveries in the properties of light which lead to the microscope and the telescope. China, despite it's technological advancement two millennia ago, went down the porcelain dead end.

How do you put mathematical principles onto a TL scale, because without key equations our understanding of the natural world would be stuck.

A direct line can be drawn from the equation for waves in a violin string to Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism which were THE major TL paradigm shift, which in turn were built on the brilliance of Michael Faraday.

Electromagnetism begat atomic theory which begat quantum mechanics.

So is a TL scale built upon paradigm changes or evolutionary technology/mathematics/engineering/scientific development?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Many technological achievements of humankind have only recently (last hundred years or so) began to be explainable by scientific theory - the behaviour of metal crystals in alloys for example, there are many others.
 
How do you put mathematical principles onto a TL scale, because without key equations our understanding of the natural world would be stuck....
So is a TL scale built upon paradigm changes or evolutionary technology/ mathematics/ engineering/ scientific development?

You seem to be all over this topic Mike, how would you do it?
 
While fiddling around with a UWP descriptor, I was trying to describe tech levels for use in the breakout. I came up with these --
TL-0 = "may be primitive to stone age"
TL-1 = "can range from the bronze to middle ages"
TL-2 = "is akin to the age of sail, circa 1500 AD"
TL-3 = "is similar to the industrial revolution, ranging from 1700 AD to 1900 AD"
TL-4 = "is early mechanization, circa 1900 AD, including electricity and analog computers"
TL-5 = "is circa 1930 AD. Ground cars, machine guns, and polymers are common"
TL-6 = "is the early nuclear age, circa 1950 AD. Fission, early computers and electronics are used"
TL-7 = "is circa 1975 AD. Rockets, organ transplants and missiles are well-known"
TL-8 = "is circa 2000 AD. Photonics, commcasters and jammers are recent innovations"
TL-9 = "is circa 2020 AD. Early fusion, NAFAL, Gravatics, cryogenics, and Jump-1 are available"
TL-10 = "is circa 2100 AD. Practical fusion, lifters, and datacasters are becoming available"
TL-11 = "is circa Imperial Year 0. Fusion plus, semi-organic brains and Jump-2 are on the market"
TL-12 = "is circa Imperial Year 300. Anti-geriatrics, positronic brains and nuclear dampers are in use"
TL-13 = "is circa Imperial Year 550. Robots, Comm-plus, cloning, biologics and wafers are typical"
TL-14 = "is circa Imperial Year 800. Geneering, self-aware systems and psi-shields are created"
TL-15 = "is circa Imperial Year 1100. Anagathics and Jump-6 are available"
TL-16 = "is the Darrian maximum. Anti-matter, artifical persons, artifical intelligence and black globes exist"
TL-17 = "is the near future, fusion rifles and Hop-1 may be available"
TL-18 = "is the far future. Collectors, disruptors and holovisors are used"
TL-19 = "is the far far future. Elemental matter transport and disintegrator pistols may exist"
TL-20 = "approaches magic. Limited global matter transport and white globes may be known"
TL-21 To 32 = "is accelerating toward singularity. Relativity rifles and stasis may exist"
TL-33 = "has reached the technological singularity"

Dalthor,

Please E-mail me at: Maksim_smelchak@yahoo.com

I have a number of ideas about this.

Thank you.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
 
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