h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

(Revolution the TV series..)


To turn off all the electricity, but allow animals, humans, etc.. to continue to work? (i.e. our brains neurons exchange info using electricity don't they)...

And if it were, how comes no-ones using something like a Wankel engine (or a Steam Engine at that)?- i.e no spark plugs needed ignition happens because of the compression- OK you'd need a crank starter to get it going in the first place...

Oh, and has anyone else noticed that the o which is styled as an on/off switch looks vaguely rude?

I think the short answer would be no. As to the second part I haven't watched Revolution, but I'd imagine they might have been inspired by Dies The Fire by S. M. Stirling. In those books, it's not only electricity that stops working but also combustion.

But then you'd have no fire either....

If it were an ongoing EM pulse (so a "man-made" situation) could this stop things? (personally I doubt it - just intrigued).

There are some people who have "pendants" in the show in the region of which electricity still seems to "work"...

"pendants"

Dude, spoilers (I've seen it, but other's might not have... you really should separate stuff like that from the main body of the post and clearly mark it so people can scroll past it easily).

"To turn off all the electricity, but allow animals, humans, etc.. to continue to work? (i.e. our brains neurons exchange info using electricity don't they)..."

That's not really how it works. Electrical impulses are not the same as electricity, plus we don't know what happened, an EMP wouldn't hurt people but would ruin pretty much all electrical devices.

"And if it were, how comes no-ones using something like a Wankel engine (or a Steam Engine at that)?- i.e no spark plugs needed ignition happens because of the compression- OK you'd need a crank starter to get it going in the first place..."

How do you know they're not? Just because we haven't seen it doesn't mean it's not happening. Plus it stretches credibility* more to assume these things are a) common and b) people know enough about how they work to properly utilise them. If it were appropriate to the narrative/universe to have wankel and steam engines on every street corner, they'd be in the story.

*Yes, I know, but just because I don't think it's worth getting angry over lack of credibility in sci-fi doesn't mean I won't discuss it.

but that came up in episode 1 so not much of a spoiler...

Don't all diesel engines work by compression? (I'm asking as I don't really know) and doesn't it stretch credulity if there aren't at least some Diesel's around after 15 years? (or come to think of it) Steam powered vehicles ...

(Spoiler....)





I'd at least expect the "army" to have them....

I have no clue what this Revolution is you are talking about, but one thing comes to mind concerning the question of Diesel engines fifteen years after some loss of electricity. Yes, the engines would still be around, and you could probably get them to start up*, but finding the Diesel fuel to fuel those engines might be the hard part. Where would (enough) Diesel be produced? How would it be delivered to gas stations? (Yes, all of this can be done without electricity, I guess, but if from one second to the next all electrical components failed to work for good today, most people would not even be able to unlock their cars...)



* Diesel engines do not need ignition spark plugs as gasoline engines do. With Diesel engines, the fuel is compressed so much that the heat within the combustion chamber is enough to make the fuel explode. Once the explosions start going, there is enough heat in the chamber. The problem is to make it hot enough for the first explosion. That's why Diesel engines need to (electrically) heat up for a few seconds before they can start.

Though if your diesel gets too cold you may need to give it a bit of help:

http://english.people.com.cn/mediafile/201201/06/F201201060923442943423537.jpg

You don't need diesel to run a diesel engine. One of the really cool things about them is they're not that picky what they burn. Chip fat will do...

http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/introduction.html

Now the other thing about diesel engines - there are a LOT of them about, and there are LOT of people about who know a lot about them, because they're really really common and they're pretty simple (at least, the sort of ones you find in tractors and cars over thirty years old are - yer modern diesel engines are all clever and computer controlled and hence a bit rubbish). So in any posited "world without electricity", you'd have to have a pretty good reason why everyone wasn't simply running round in diesel-engined cars and trucks powered by easy-to-find, sustainable, pretty cheap vegetable oil. The parts are all over the place, mechanics who could get them going are all over the place, and the fuel is easy to replace, comparatively. The only reason everyone doesn't run their car on veggie oil is that right now, fossil fuels are cheaper because of the kind of economies of scale that you can apply to them. But in an ongoing emergency, diesel engines would be everywhere.

That's what I thought... Well at least a .... turned up in the last episode I watched...

The only caveat about using vegetable based fuel sources on large scale is that it takes away a lot of the land available for the growing of food...

If there's been an apocalypse, there are no masses to feed, so that's less of a problem.

And no masses to tend the vegetable crops either. They'd need to use mechanical agricultural tools instead. Pulled by a tractor, say. But they can't use the tractor until they've grown the vegetables ...

Jeez SF is hard on the brain.

Mol

Well I've no idea what 'Revolution' is so I didn't realise there'd been an apocalypse

Although in retrospect maybe use of EMP was a clue.

Revolution is a TV series on Sky, where something has stopped all manufactured electrical devices stopped working... Animals, and other natural electrical things continue to work (e.g. thunderstorms)..

Saying any more without giving plot points away is a bit tricky....

Its quite good actually, slowly revealing why things have happened... but, imho, has the big blooper that no Diesel engines seem to be around....