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User:Beland/Civilization restart

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After a collapse of civilization, what knowledge would be most important to convey in order to quickly bring civilization back to its current level of development? Can that be conveyed in a short amount of written text and illustrations?

Single-Page Science

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  • Scientific method - The universe operates in certain predicable ways, and some can be described as mathematical laws. The only reliable way to gain information about how the universe works is through empirical testing. Form a hypothesis, design an experiment to confirm or disprove that hypothesis, and publish the result. Peer review of reports is important to ensure reliable methods were used. Over time, a consensus should emerge.

Physics

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  • Atomic theory - Matter is composed of huge numbers of invisibly small particles known as atoms. Each atom is composed of protons (positive electrical charge) and neutrons (neutral electrical charge) in the central nucleus, surrounded by electrons (negative electrical charge, of negligible weight) which interact between atoms to make more complicated matter. Multiple atoms bound together form a molecule.
  • Heat is the random vibration of atoms, quantified by thermodynamics.
  • Sound is the passage of pressure waves through a material.
  • Matter can exist in the phases of solid (atoms/molecules in a fixed arrangement), liquid (atoms/molecules slipping past each other), gas (atoms/molecules bouncing around at high speed and widely spaced, filling their container), or plasma (a gas where electrons have been stripped off nuclei), depending on temperature and pressure.
    • The temperature, pressure, and volume of a gas are approximately related by the ideal gas law.
  • Atomic nuclei can be combined (atomic fusion) or split (atomic fission) which can require or release extremely large amounts of energy and dangerous radiation (electromagnetic and high-speed particles). Some nuclei are unstable and undergo fission spontaneously (radioactive decay).
  • Fundamental interactions can affect matter and subatomic particles:
    • Electric charge can be positive or negative. Like charges repel; opposite charges attract. Charge can be produced by rubbing certain materials together, such as amber, fabrics, fur, or hair, in dry air. Electricity (including lightning) is the flow of electric charge carried by moving electrons.
    • Magnetic fields are generated by certain materials like iron, and the Earth has a natural one. Magnetic poles can be "north" (attracted to the Earth's northern magnetic pole, which emits a "south" field) or "south" (attracted to the Earth's southern magnetic pole, which emits a "north" field). Opposite poles attract, same poles repel.
    • Electricity and magnetism are two aspects of electromagnetism. A changing magnetic field creates an electric field, and a changing electric field creates a magnetic field. The interactions are described by Maxwell's equations.
    • Gravity is created by all matter and is always attractive.
    • The weak interaction is responsible for radioactive decay. It can be described by electroweak theory, which describes the weak interaction and electromagnetism as different aspects of the same force.
    • The strong interaction holds quarks together to form protons and neutrons, and is described by quantum chromodynamics.
  • Light is a type of electromagnetic radiation or wave. Some lower frequencies are useful for heating matter (infrared, microwaves) and communications (radio waves). Some higher frequencies (X-rays) have more energy and are useful for seeing inside objects and living things, but are dangerous and can cause cancer or immediate death if over-exposed.
  • The matter of everyday objects at everyday speeds are quantified by classical mechanics which assumes:
  • At atomic scales, quantum mechanics is a better description of motion. It says: energy, momentum, angular momentum, and other quantities of a bound system are restricted to discrete values (quantization), objects have characteristics of both particles and waves (wave-particle duality), and there are limits to how accurately the value of a physical quantity can be predicted prior to its measurement, given a complete set of initial conditions (the uncertainty principle).
  • The speed of light in a vacuum is constant no matter the velocity of the (non-rotating) observer, as are the laws of physics (special relativity). To prove this, perform the Michelson–Morley experiment. This is possible because time passes at a different rate for observers at different velocities, and it is not possible to have a velocity faster than the speed of light. The equations of general relativity describe gravity as a phenomenon of unified spacetime and it is possible to produce gravity waves which are very difficult to detect. The difference between relativistic and classical equations of motion are important for large or fast-moving objects, and noticeably affects the orbit of the planet closest to the Sun (perihelion precession of Mercury) and bending of light around large astronomical objects. General relativity has not been reconciled with quantum mechanics to produce a set of equations that accurately describe motion at all scales.
  • Antimatter

Cosmology

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  • The Earth is approximately spherical, and its size can be calculated by observing stars from distant locations (Spherical Earth). Everyday objects are pulled toward the center of the Earth due to the gravity produced by its large mass. Gravity holds the gases we breathe (the atmosphere) around the Earth in a relatively thin layer compared to the diameter of the Earth. Beyond that is mostly vacuum.
  • The Sun is a ball of plasma about 109 times the diameter of the Earth. Under the extreme pressure caused by its own gravity, it produces enormous amounts of heat and light by the atomic fusion of hydrogen ions (one proton) into helium-4 ions (two protons, two neutrons). It is over 20,000 earth diameters or 8.3 light-minutes away. The Sun produces a solar wind which can cause electromagnetic fields on Earth and lights the skies in the far north and south with mostly green aurora.
  • The fixed stars are similar to the Sun, but much farther away. The closest is 4.2 light-years. They are clumped by gravity into star clusters and galaxies. The Sun is one star in the disc-like Milky Way Galaxy, which is seen edge-on from the Earth as a concentrated of band of stars in the night sky.
  • Slow-moving stars that move noticeably against the fixed stars over successive nights, are actually planets which are spherical like the Earth, some smaller and rocky, some larger and made mostly of gas.
  • The planets, including the Earth, move around the Sun in orbits that are approximately ellipses. Two planets are closer to the Sun than the Earth. There are also many small rocks orbiting the sun called asteroids.
  • Fast-moving stars are either asteroids that have fallen into the atmosphere and burn up (called meteors), or artificial satellites launched into Earth orbit on rockets for the purposes of over-the-horizon communication or Earth observation.
  • For unclear reasons, all the matter in the universe exploded from a single point 13.8 billions years ago (the Big Bang). The echo of this explosion is observable as the cosmic microwave background radiation. Space itself is expanding, causing galaxies to accelerate away from each other, observable as red shift.

Chemistry

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Benzene

Biology

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The structure of the DNA double helix. The atoms in the structure are colour-coded by element and the detailed structures of two base pairs are shown in the bottom right.

Science work in progress

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BIOLOGY

MEDICINE

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

FOOD SCIENCE

  • List of known safe food additives

Math - work in progress

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  • Arithmetic
  • Alegbra
  • Calculus
  • Differential equations
  • Geometry, trigonometry, vectors
  • Imaginary numbers
  • Special numbers - e, pi
  • Useful or foundational formulas
  • Chaos, fractals
  • Statistics and probability
  • Game theory
  • Cryptography

Essential technology

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Excellent lists:

Materials

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Power

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Measurement

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Communication

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Transportation

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Transportation technologies:

Maybe skip these:

Vehicles:

Weapons and explosives

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WORK IN PROGRESS

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  • Agriculture
    • Irrigation
    • Fertilization
    • Staple grain crops
    • Millstone
    • Pots and pans
    • Modern oven and stove
    • Chocolate
  • Flushing toilet
  • Vacuum tube
  • Transistor
  • LED
  • Navigation
  • Seafaring

COMMUNICATION TECH

  • Printing press with moveable metal type
  • Chemical photography
  • Audio recording - phonograph
  • Telephone
  • Computer

POWER TECH

Economic staples

Social science

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ECONOMICS

  • Supply and demand

GOVERNMENT AND ETHICS

Reading for development of this page

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Essential detailed documents

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