A point of clarification on “no electricity,” which I clearly need to explain more in the book: Naturally occurring electricity is possible - static electricity, the electricity we have/need in our bodies, etc. The question I am addressing is what would it be like for someone to live as if it were the 18th century smack dab in the middle of the 21st century. As shadowfax points out, I have to make sure we don’t break any laws of physics. Part of the fun and struggle of writing the book is making sure everything has a logical reason for not working.
Can’t tell you how much this conversation has advanced the book, thank you all!
Dan
Instead of using a hand crank to start a diesel engine truck, your character might be able to use compressed air and a 1/2" pneumatic drill to start the engine.
I’m not sure, but I think glow plugs heat up the cylinders so the fuel ignites properly when it is compressed. However, this being science fiction, you don’t have to address the issue of glow plugs. Nit pickers might ask themselves how the engine can run without any electricity, but most of the audience won’t care. That’s the great thing about science fiction; you can change the rules. You can have your main character be so intelligent that he solves that particular scientific conundrum and makes or modifies a diesel engine that can run without glow plugs, or he can figure out a way to make glow plugs that don’t use electricity.
Can someone explain to me what glow plugs are and what they do?
Diesels work by compressing the air/fuel mixture. Compressing things heats them up, and unlike a gasoline engine, which requires compression and a spark to ignite the mixture, diesels will ignite just from the heat of compression alone.
… Except when they’re cold. The piston and cylinder walls absorb too much heat when the engine is too cold, and without that heat the mixture won’t ignite. Enter the glow plug. It’s basically a little pencil-shaped heating element (which, yes, does run on electricity, sorry to say) that preheats the cylinder so that the mixture retains enough heat to combust when it’s compressed. Of course, you could get around the electric glow plug issue by putting, say, a small butane torch in each cylinder, or by never having the engine turned off when it’s cold out.
If you want an engine that does not require any electricity to run at all in any phase of its operation, try a valveless pulsejet. They use no electricity, have no moving parts, and can be started with a burning piece of wood. The downside is that they’re very loud and very hot. The upside is that everyone would know when your hero was within a 1 mile radius
@DanCitizen, are you “married” to this being a sci-fi novel?
I mean, if you want to explore the effect of somebody using mostly circa-1820 technology, and apart from moden society, you could make your protagonist Amish. Probably have a good market that way…lots of “English” folk enamored of them.
Of course, you’d have to a lot of research to make it seem authentic.
And THAT brings DanCitizen right directly to the…steam engine !
Waay back , they tried it on cars. ( after trains and tractors, they tried to make it small enough )
With no electricity…THAT would be your personal locomoting vehicle.
( aside from pedal power )
C’mon now, the Flintstones seemed to get around just fine without electricity in their vehicle! That Barney Rubble, what an actor!
Maybe this character in the book only affects a bubble around “him” like an aura or something. If he directly touches anyone or thing in this world, they get vaporized like matter and anti-matter. He has a force field around him such that he can move about and not destroy everything he comes near to but it does have a deterimental effect- like the electrical operation being suppressed in his presence…
meanjoe75fan, that is the idea. Its not going to be sci-fi and therefore everything needs to be explained by today’s science. I read a great book called Better Off (http://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Flipping-Switch-Technology/dp/0060570059) which chronicles his year or so living with the Amish without electricity.
Dan
PS - again, thank you everyone, this chain is amazing and much of it will be incorporated into the book.
It appears glow plugs showed up around 1929. That means diesels were used for about 36 years without glow plugs.
I’m sure starting diesels in cold weather was a big pain without glow plugs, but they were started. Isn’t this book trying to show how life is a little more difficult without electricity?
It’s one thing to design an engine to start without glow plugs. It’s different to try and start one designed for glow plug with them not working. With a crank, or trying to bump start. Seems like the squirt of ether would be the best bet.
But easier (given the story) just to have somebody else start it, and keep it running.
It’s hard to hand crank an antique car with what, a 6:1 compression ratio, so I don’t think there’s any real way to crank a car diesel. Maybe kick start a small diesel motorcycle.
Hand cranking a diesel the traditional way (1:1 gear ratio) would be no fun.
But aren’t there plenty of ways to devise something to give one a mechanical advantage?
I don’t think you want to just ask car guys about this. This is really a problem in physics.
I read a lot of science fiction. The BEST science fiction books are ones where there’s actually science fact and good scientific theory. Some of the best writers are physicist. They do a lot of science research on the subject at hand. Many spend years doing research. One writer I knew of took classes at MIT for his masters as research for a book he wrote. I’m not saying that sci-fi is all accurate. Some take science and then stretch it beyond reality. But some just make things up and then go from there. Pseudo science does NOT make good science fiction. Pretty much everything on the sci-fi channel is pseudo science.
It’s not a coincidence that the biggest science fiction conferences are at MIT and Caltech. It’s a known FACT…you want to get someone interested in science…get them interested in good science fiction.
So you are starting out with a premise “No electricity”. Now you should do some research into how this could possibly happen. And why would it happen to only non living things. Do that research first. Then go from there. If you can’t find a plausible way for it to happen…then it’s just pseudo science. It may or may not make a good story.
I find the whole exercise going in the opposite direction of where the world is headed. We are or should be involving electricity more in our daily transportation lives from public to the electric car, and not trying to think of ways to remove it. This is an exercise in going backwards in time away from elficiency when we should be looking for ways to increase efficiency because our innate prejudice in depending on something you can’t see or understand. Let’s face it; running any motor can wind a huge spring or torsion bar or fill a cannister with compress air to start a diesel. None is as efficient in size or weight or as dependable as just charging a battery.
I do believe that MikeInNh is right and this is for what it’s worth, a way of demonstrating how important electricity is and not a way of actually replacing it. We often do that in education by proposing the elimination of the real solution to a problem, not to eliminate it, but to develope better ways of using it. That I can understand. Going much further, I can’t.
A huge part of modern fiction is ‘dystopias’, with a near-future world run amok. Much of it’s pretty depressing stuff. This weekend is another example, ‘Elysium’. Then there’s Hunger Games, Revolution and many others.
