non-fiction Archives - Eric Flint's 1632 & Beyond

Volume 26 #11: Industrial Alchemy: Part 3

Previous Industrial Alchemy: Part 3, Organic Chemistry Methods and Canonical Appearances Written by Iver P. Cooper Organic Chemistry is both a new discipline, and an old one. New, in that the first artificial synthesis of an organic compound didn’t occur until 1828. Old, in that organic compounds, in dilute form, have been produced for centuries: […]

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Volume 26 #10: The Ox is Slow but the Earth is Patient

Previous / Next The Ox is Slow but the Earth is Patient: A very basic guide to the use of oxen Written by Karen Bergstralh From time to time we have had people drop in to 1632 Tech and ask, “What about oxen?” It is a fair question and we’ve suggested that someone familiar with […]

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Volume 26 #9: A Night with Venus: STIs and Their Treatment in the 1630s, Part One

Previous / Next A Night with Venus: STIs and Their Treatment in the 1630s, Part One Written by Gus Kritikos Sexually transmitted infections (formerly called venereal diseases) caused a surprising amount of discomfort, loss of fertility, madness and even death in the early modern era. There was a lack of understanding of the diseases, of […]

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Volume 25 #9: Binding the Land With Steel

Previous Binding the Land With Steel Written by Kevin H. Evans It came to pass in the days of Gustav Adolphus, messengers came forth from another time, and the people all did clamor, “Our children are starving and we are cold.”And behold, the messengers did create Granges and Factories, and plenty from there came forth. […]

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Volume 25 #8: Industrial Alchemy, Part 2: Inorganic Chemical Bestiary

Previous / Next Industrial Alchemy, Part 2: Inorganic Chemical Bestiary Written by Iver P. Cooper Within a few weeks of the Ring of Fire (RoF), Greg Ferrara tells the “Emergency Committee” that “Sulfuric acid is about as basic for modern industry as steel.” The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (EB11) and the modern Encyclopedia Americana (EA) agree […]

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Volume 24 #8: Finding Your Way in Another Plane

Previous Finding Your Way in Another Plane Written by Kevin H. Evans More than anything else, air travel has become one of the great indicators of up-time connections. Aircraft and other flying devices show, more than anything else, the influence of up-time technology on the 17th century. Perhaps one of the Hallmark questions that gets […]

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Volume 24 #7: Industrial Alchemy, Part 1: The New Philosopher’s Stone

Previous / Next Industrial Alchemy, Part 1: The New Philosopher’s Stone Written by Iver P. Cooper In alchemical thought, the Philosopher’s Stone is a fantastical artifact which is capable of transmuting base metals into gold. The new Philosopher’s Stone is not an artifact, but knowledge—the teachings of twentieth century chemistry as transmitted by the up-timers […]

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Volume 23 #9: Mineral Mastery

Previous Mineral Mastery: Discovery and Control of Ore Deposits After the Baltic War Written by Iver P. Cooper Introduction Kipling may have thought that only “Iron—Cold Iron—is master of them all,” but there are quite a few minerals which will be of military and economic importance in the “new” 1630s. This essay updates the economic […]

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Volume 23 #8: The Oil Mines at Wietze and Pechelbronn

Previous / Next The Oil Mines at Wietze and Pechelbronn Written by Jeff Corwith Introduction After collection of oil from surface outcrops and seeps, mining of oil is arguably the oldest means of exploiting hydrocarbon resources. Heavy oils, used to caulk ships, were hand dug from shallow pits in the Middle East several hundred years […]

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Volume 22 #9: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

Previous / Next Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme: Gardening and Growing Food in 1632 Written by Anette PedersenIntroduction The benefits of growing usable plants near your sleeping place—as opposed to having to search for them whenever you need them—are so obvious that people must have started the first gardens as soon as they discovered that […]

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Volume 21 #12: Hyperinflation: Who Is Going To Do It?

Previous / Next Hyperinflation: Who Is Going To Do It? Written by Gorg Huff The 16th century was a period of massive inflation. European silver production increased as gold and silver came from the Americas. The growing importance of credit transactions plus population growth and the expansion of European economies and trade were all factors. […]

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Volume 21 #11: Home on the Grange

Previous / Next Home On the Grange Written by Kevin H. Evans Take Europe . . . The state of agriculture in the 1600s is unique. Nothing approaching the modern standardization of methods existed. One can find farming practices ranging from the ancient to the modern. This is mostly because of the large number of diverse political systems […]

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1632 & Beyond Issue 15 #8: Historic Gems Restorations

1632 & Beyond Issue 15 #7: The Mannington Minute

Previous / Next The Mannington MinuteJackie Britton Lopatin Small town and rural life is unsurprisingly different from life in bigger cities. It has a different rhythm to it. Not that the people have different likes or dislikes, but events have to be cognizant of all the other events going on around them and how well […]

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Volume 20 #11: Better Foundations, Part 2: Putting Concrete to Work

Previous / Next Better Foundations, Part 2: Putting Concrete to Work Written by Iver P. Cooper In the world the up-timers left behind, the most widely consumed substance on Earth was water. What came second? Concrete. Indeed, concrete can be said to be, quite literally, the foundation of modern society. We depend upon it for […]

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Volume 20 #10: An Analysis of the Effect of Evangelical Missions on the 1632verse

Previous / Next An Analysis of the Effect of Evangelical Missions on the 1632verse Written by John Davis Technology is usually thought of in terms of understanding of the physical world and the ability to manipulate it. However, ideas and methodology can also be thought of as a form of technology in which society is […]

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Volume 19 #12: Wingless Wonders

Previous Wingless Wonders Written by Kevin H. Evans Lighter-than-air technology is a lot like the game Go. It is easy to learn, but very hard to master. Many countries tried the technology, but only a few managed to master it. By far the largest number of rigid airships were built by Germany. On the other […]

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Volume 19 #11: Plausibility Denial or Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

Previous / Next Plausibility Denial or Truth is Stranger Than Fiction Written by Gorg Huff Predictions and Reality Some years ago the barflies who frequent the 1632 Tech Manual, after much debate, came up with the number of computers in Mannington, West Virginia. Which was also the number of computers in Grantville. At the most […]

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Volume 19 #10: Better Foundations, Part 1: An Introduction to Concrete

Previous / Next Better Foundations, Part 1: An Introduction to Concrete Written by Iver P. Cooper Concrete—”Liquid Stone”—has made possible many innovations in architecture. Yet concrete is no Space Age wunderkind; it has its roots in antiquity. Concrete, albeit of a kind inferior to the modern product, was used by the Romans in the construction of […]

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1632 & Beyond Issue 14 #7: Movies And Television The Year Before The Ring Of Fire

Previous Movies And Television The Year Before The Ring Of Fire Tracy S. Morris Sometimes, I’d like to time travel to the day that I came up with the idea for Betsy Springer with my co-writer Brad Sinor and make her a little less rooted in late ’90s pop culture. It wasn’t a problem when […]

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Volume 18 #12: Safety First: Industrial Safety in 1632, Part Two

Previous Safety First: Industrial Safety in 1632,Part Two, Technical Aspects Written by Iver P. Cooper Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil’s Dictionary, defined an “accident” as “an inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws.” But some industrial accidents are avoidable, and the secret to minimizing them is to know what the hazards of the […]

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Volume 18 #11: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Previous / Next Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Mathematics After the Ring of Fire Written by William Truderung The Ring of Fire was an event that shook the world of 1631 to its foundations. One of the disciplines destined to be revolutionized is mathematics, which was still in its infancy at the time. This […]

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Volume 18 #10: What’s For Dinner

Previous / Next NONFICTION: What’s For Dinner: Typical Dishes From 1632. Written by Anette Pedersen The common dishes in 1632 were quite different from what most western people eat today, and the following article will try to show what would have been prepared and served in the household of a moderately prosperous craftsman—say a printer […]

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Volume 17 #14: Scraps of Fashion

Previous / Next Scraps of Fashion Written by Lisa Satterlund Something to keep in mind when writing fashion into your 1632verse stories is that the down-timers don’t think their fashions are ugly. From the point of view of the twentieth century, the up-timers will see many of the garments the highest classes wear as stiff, […]

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Volume 17 #13: Food Preservation in 1632

Previous / Next The Importance of Having a Pig: Food and Preservation in 1632 Written by Anette Pedersen The Importance of Storage Self-sufficiency was the alpha and omega of housekeeping in the 1632 era, and no matter how rich or poor a household was, it was the responsibility of the housewife or housekeeper to ensure […]

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Volume 17 #12: The Steam Car

Previous / Next The Steam Car Written by Kevin H. Evans The day approaches, more quickly than we may think, that the demand for automobiles will far surpass the supply that arrived with the Ring of Fire. Also many of the cars from the future will have un-repairable breakdowns. A solution to the transportation gap […]

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Volume 16 #13: Unintended Consequences: Dealing with the Population Density Explosion

Previous Unintended Consequences: Dealing with the Population Density Explosion Written by Walt Boyes The reconstruction of Magdeburg brings to mind issues in population density. Although relatively large cities existed in 1634 in OTL, none of them qualifies as a really modern city, as the up-timers would recognize them. The up-timers will cause an unparalleled population […]

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Volume 16 #11: The High-Stepping Beauties

Previous / Next The High-Stepping Beauties Written by Kevin H. Evans Joseph stood on the platform, his eyes tightly shut, straining with his whole self to hear the whistle. It was time. The schedule said it was time, the whistle would tell. There it was, the distant chime. It was the first notes of a […]

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Volume 16 #9: Tell Me What You Eat, and I’ll Tell You Who You Are

Previous / Next Tell Me What You Eat, and I’ll Tell You Who You Are Written by Anette Pedersen Food and Cooking According to Class in 1632 Introduction In the Germany of 1632 the difference between the food available to the rich and to the poor was immensely bigger than it is today. Not so […]

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Volume 15 #15: Tennis: The Game of Kings

Previous Tennis: The Game of Kings Written by Iver P. Cooper Many of the stories of the 1632 Universe relate to the flow of ideas—technological and social—from the up-timers to the down-timers. But the flow can be in the other direction, too. My story “The Chase” (Ring of Fire 2) relates how the up-timers learn […]

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Volume 15 #14: The Theobroma Shell Game

Previous / Next The Theobroma Shell Game Written by Karen C. Evans Chocolate, that magical substance that smoothes out the rough parts of our lives. Those of us who have been living with the Grantville “disaster” these past years are reconciled to the fact that we will never have chocolate again. It isn’t available in […]

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Volume 15 #13: The Geared Locomotive or What Wood You Shay To?

Previous / Next The Geared Locomotive or What Wood You Shay To? Written by Kevin H. Evans Geared locomotives were developed to handle rough track industrial applications. Most notable were logging short lines, and mining short lines. The traditional steam locomotive has cylinders parallel to the ground with the effort of those cylinders transferred to […]

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Volume 15 #12: Soundings and Sextants,Part Two

Previous / Next Soundings and Sextants,Part Two, Celestial Navigation Methods Written by Iver P. Cooper According to Marx’s book on the Spanish flota, ship’s navigators were regarded with scorn and, on many occasions, the denouement to the stranding of a ship’s crew was the assassination or execution of the navigator (71). Up-time celestial navigation methods may […]

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1632 & Beyond Issue 12 #1: What is Redbird?

Previous / Next What is Redbird? Bethanne Kim Why is this in nonfiction when Redbird is fictional? It’s not a story. It’s the story behind the story. Most of what is written in this universe is solidly built on the foundation of what is real. Grantville isn’t real, but Mannington (the town Grantville is based […]

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1632 & Beyond Issue 11 #7: The Impact Of Mannington On Grantville And Grantville On Mannington

Previous / Next The Mannigton Minute: The Impact Of Mannington On Grantville And Grantville On Mannington Jackie Britton Lopatin My husband, Leonard Lopatin, and I feel so blessed to be living in historic Mannington, a small town in the West Virginia mountains on Highway 250. When people here would ask us how or why we […]

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1632 & Beyond Issue 11 #7: Economics Are Not Abstract

Previous / Next Economics Are Not Abstract Gorg Huff We act like they are. We assume that they are. But they are not. The economics of Grantville are not the economics of Amsterdam. The principles are the same, but the details are different, and the devil, the weather, and economics are in the details. In […]

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Volume 10 #19: The Feast

Previous THE FEAST by Anette Pedersen Guildmaster B in a fair-sized northern European town is giving a party to celebrate his second son’s engagement to the daughter of another guildmaster. Come and let me show you what’s going on. The Street The street leading past the house is not one of the main streets through […]

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Volume 10 #18: All Roads Lead to…

Previous / Next ALL ROADS LEAD. . . . By Iver P. Cooper A seventeenth-century visitor might well think that all roads lead to Grantville, not Rome, because down-time roads pale by comparison. “Captain Gars,” riding on Route 250, noted its “perfect flatness,” and considered it to be “the finest road he had ever seen in his life.” […]

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Volume 10 #17: Herd Immunity

Previous / Next Herd Immunity By Vincent W. Coljee Life, disease and death in the 1630s Imagining life in a small town in Germany in the 1630s is difficult for the average twenty-first century dweller. Picture awaking from an interrupted night’s sleep, courtesy of the local swine brawling in the alley below your bedroom window. […]

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Volume 10 #16: Crude Peniccilin

Previous / Next Crude Penicillin: Potential and Limitations By Kim Mackey “That which we know frequently impedes us in acquiring new knowledge.” Claude Bernard (1813-1878), French physiologist. Background and Early History of Penicillin The Age of Disinfection began with the work of Pasteur and Lister in the 1860s and 1870s. While this initial work focused on […]

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Issue 9 #7: Available Now and Coming Soon

Issue 9 #6: X-Rays!

Previous / Next X-Rays! Iver Cooper X-rays may be used for medical imaging and treatment, metallurgical examination, and chemical characterization. How soon will this be possible in the 1632 Universe? X-Rays X-rays are a high-energy form of electromagnetic radiation. On the electromagnetic spectrum, they lie in between ultraviolet and gamma rays. Surprisingly, there isn’t an […]

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The Frontier Culture Museum

September 18, 2024 1632 & Beyond, 1632verse, Blog, non-fiction by Bethanne Kim

I have driven past signs for “this “The Frontier Culture Museum” off Interstate 81 in Virginia many times and have often thought about stopping there, but we were always in a rush to get somewhere. Finally, on the way home from DragonDon 2024, we had the time. As an added bonus, we had perfect weather. […]

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1632 & Beyond Issue 6 #6: Inside Baseball

Previous Inside BaseballBjorn Hasseler Since Robert finished his Cassini cycle of baseball stories in this issue, I decided on a baseball name for this column. It’s the inside scoop, the nuts and bolts, perhaps a little of how the sausage is made. Most of the staff of Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond just got home […]

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1632 & Beyond Issue 6 #5: Buzz! Beekeeping in the 1632 Universe Part 2

Previous / Next Buzz! Beekeeping in the 1632 Universe, Part 2 Iver P. Cooper Transplanting Bees The European honey bee has been deliberately transported to regions outside its native range, notably North and South America, Australia and New Zealand, and Japan. There are obvious problems with shipping bees overseas on sailing ships. The voyages are […]

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Volume 102 #6: Time May Change Me, Part 4

Previous / Next By Charles E. Gannon, Ph.D. and David Carrico So by 1636, it’s been obvious for some time now that the SRG flintlock is approaching the end of its utility phase. It won’t be long before it’s more of a liability than an asset. The French have already produced a clone of the […]

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1632 & Beyond Issue 3 #5: Something Old, Something New: A Materials of Construction Survey

Previous Iver P. Cooper What we can construct—whether it be a building, a boiler, or a toaster—and how well it performs its function depends on the materials incorporated into it. One of the effects of the Ring of Fire will be an ever-expanding palette of materials of construction for the engineer. Depending on their properties […]

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Volume 92 #6: Flags of the World: The USE, Part 2

Flags of the World: The USE, Part 2 Previous / Next by Mike Nagle Other Flags of the United States of Europe At the end of 1636, the United States of Europe is composed of 16 provinces and states, 8 free imperial cities, and 2 districts. Additionally, 8 former free imperial cities (of the Holy […]

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Farm Equipment That Came Through the Ring of Fire